Fresh Paint
by Deathcomes4u
Summary: Thanks to Bob the Insecticon, Rung runs into Sunstreaker on the 'Lost Light' and decides it's time the golden mech benefited from his skills and began the healing process. Bob tags along of course. Set in the IDW comic 'More Than Meets The Eye' before issue 6 (But will cover issue 6 and beyond) MA- Rape, angst, some fluff and smut for taste. Sunstreaker, Rung & others.
1. Chapter 1

Alright so, I actually started writing this a long time ago and only ever uploaded it to my AO3 (Yes in case you weren't aware, I have an AO3, same pen name)

I thought it was about time I published what I have of this one so far here as well so that some of my readers who may not know it exists can find it. Unfortunately the categories here don't lend themselves to it being found in searches, they have no sub category in comics for MTMTE, Transformers in general or even IDW. Technically Marvel owns transformers, but i thought putting it under marvel wouldn't help it either so I went with miscellaneous.

The reason I didn't post this up here when i started it was because i think that 'sweeping deletion' scare was going on and i didn't want to draw attention to my lest it be ransacked for all the MA rated stuff. This is very deffinately MA rated.

This whole thing just started as dialogue in my head with Rung and Sunstreaker after I read the mtmte #6 preview, and then I realised I had to write it so i spent a couple hours hashing out the first chapter.  
It references a couple continuities of comics but possibly a little inaccurately since I only read most of them once and details got fuzzy. And I'm way too lazy to go remind myself of them cause by then I woulda lost the dialogue in my head. It started, like all extremely involved fics, as a oneshot that mutated. I don't plan for it to be super long, though it's already exceeded prior planned length, but it's plodding along a little faster than my other fics, so if you're wondering why i haven't updated those, thiiiis fic is why ^^;

ANYWAY. enjoy hopefully, i'm going to upload all the chapters I have so far without authors notes, so this is the only one for now.

Just for those really interested who actually read AN's ( Hahahah i'm a dick I usually don't ) there are pseudo soundtracks to this fic, so i'll list them if you want to find them:

(These two are on Bandcamp)

Samm Neiland - My crooked smile (album, tracks: 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 ), sparks, letting go of memories

Sofia Reta - Solar System (Album, tracks: sun, mercury, moon, comet, pluto ), Imperium De Somnus (Album, tracks: 7, 8 & 12 )

That's all I can remember for now. Go check them out, the music enhances the feels.

ANYWAY yeah, enjoy if you've never seen this one before and had no idea it existed.

* * *

"Stop!...Heel! Agh, I need that! Bring it back!"

Rung ran after the insecticon, since he was faster at a stride down the corridors of the 'Lost Light' than he was in his alt mode. Mostly because he would topple taking corners too fast, one of the curses of being a tri-wheel vehicle rather than the standard quad.

The insecticon made no move to slow, bounding down the corridors of the habitation suites, further and further into an area Rung had not visited. It was mostly storage rooms, so far as the schematic he had told him.

His pistons hissing loudly in protest, not used to having to work that rapidly for so long, he forced himself to continue.

That wasn't any old stylus after all. It was the one he'd received on graduation from the academy. it wouldn't even mean a great deal to him just from that except it had been given specifically to him by his single most admired role-model.

Expatiator, the greatest psychologist and psychiatrist Cybertron had ever seen (at least Rung thought so), had given him THAT stylus, and told him to 'Go out there and repair what the medics can't'.

That stylus was a symbol of his life's work, trying to live up to the task Expatiator had set him.

He was not about to let a pet insecticon steal it and use it as a chew toy.

So focused on pushing himself to break his frame's protests at such unusually vigorous use, he took another corner and ran headlong into something that did not give way, sending him sprawling across the deck on his aft rather spectacularly.

"Watch it." Was the gruff reply of the thing he'd run into, which was the only clue that told him it was a mech and not a wall.

A golden wall.

"Oh... Sunstreaker? I'm terribly sorry, I was... chasing your pet actually."

The psychiatrist looked up at the dour frontliner, trying not to stare.

It wasn't the first time they had met. But as with any time, and much like many other mechs, Rung found it difficult not to stare.

After all, Sunstreaker's narcissistic tendencies were not baseless.

It took the psychiatrist a moment to realise Sunstreaker, frowning as if slightly annoyed, was offering him a servo up.

He scrambled to accept, slightly embarrassed, but quickly recovered himself.

"I don't mean to trouble you, but your... insecticon has stolen something of mine I rather value-"

"Bob. Drop it."

The insecticon gave his master a mechanical whine and a tilt of his head.

The golden mech repeated his command with a tone that bore no argument and Bob finally relinquished, dropping the stylus into his master's outstretched servo.

"Ah, thankyou. I'm a little curious as to why he took it, is this a habit of his?"

Sunstreaker seemed to consider him a moment, expression unchanged, and turned to walk in the opposite direction as he answered.

"No. I sent him to look for things. I didn't mean for him to take things that belonged to other bots."

Curiosity found Rung following the frontliner without really consciously deciding to do so.

He had actually been meaning for some time to speak with Sunstreaker, but he'd hoped the mech would come to him of his own volition.

Part of him knew it had been too much to hope for really.

"What are you doing down here? I thought perhaps you'd be keeping company with the others in Swerve's distillery."

The frontliner gave a half shrug, his insecticon pet, 'Bob', trotting happily along beside him.

"Not really my kind of crowd I guess."

"I suppose it's the crowd part that puts you off the most?" Rung said neutrally.

"No." Flat, non-commital answer. At least it was an answer.

"So have you chosen a habitation suite yet?" A change of topic should get him talking a little better. He'd done an assessment on Sunstreaker and Sideswipe before. The golden twin was touted as the strong silent type by most of his peers, but in truth he was very talkative, assuming the conversation was intelligent and of interest to him.

"Sort of. It's not really a habitation suite. No one else was going to use it though."

There was a beat of silence as Rung caught up to the larger mech's sedate strides.

He knew the other mech was not walking slowly to let him keep up, but rather to stall their arrival at wherever Sunstreaker was headed.

"Look, I don't need shrinking, so i don't know why you're following me."

"On the contrary Sunstreaker, your recent records tell me otherwise. I'm not here to 'shrink' you, I just want to talk. Or more, I want you to talk, since i know that is not something you are inclined to do. What you are inclined to is-"

"Don't pretend to know me." The golden mech snarled, Bob mirroring the sound out of instinct.

Rung continued in a calm tone that was intended to be as non-provocative as possible.

"-you tend to bottle things up when you don't have another mech you feel comfortable talking to. And since neither your brother, nor Ironhide are here, and i haven't seen you taking any sort of liking to any of the other crew members-"

"Wrong again." Sunstreaker growled.

"Tell me how I am wrong. I do not wish to be right on this." Rung responded softly.

the frontliner stopped in his tracks suddenly, ex-venting in aggravation, Bob plopping down on his aft and looking between the two mechs with bemused confusion.

"It's not that I don't like any of them. They don't like ME. They have no reason to. Not after what I did."

"On Earth?" Rung asked without any bias in his tone, but he could see the dark blue optics cycling tightly.

Just the name of the planet had a negative effect.

Rung knew just from that he could not leave Sunstreaker untreated. It would go against every code he lived by.

Sunstreaker began walking again, stiff and clearly unwilling to touch the subject.

Rung didn't press. He knew he didn't have to. He just needed to wait a moment...

"You don't even know slag about Earth."

He knew enough about the golden mech to know he couldn't keep it to himself when there was a willing outlet like him around.

"I have reviewed every file of every mech on this ship and what happened on that planet to those who were there."

"Oh yeah? And what the slag would any of the records say about what happened to me? I'm sure there's a fully detailed report on how I betrayed the Autobot cause." He spat violently, Bob making a small whining noise, clearly not sure why his master was angry.

"Actually, Jazz made rather a large effort to retrieve any and all information regarding what the Humans did to you."

"Oh did he now? Pity he didn't expend the same effort to actually _find _me when it was _happening._" He snarled.

Stealing a sideways glance, Rung could see the normally extremely handsome faceplate was screwed up with intense anger and unspoken rage.

But even as he watched, it drained to a much wearier look.

"But I guess they paid their dues with my mistake. I mean frag, what slagging _idiot _takes STARSCREAM at his word?"

A cold, bitter laugh with no mirth followed, and they fell into silence again for a while.

"So you believe the crew here does not want you around because you betrayed your comrades? Even the mechs who were not part of the same crew, or not part of the war altogether?"

"You know me so well, what do you think? I've never exactly been social. In fact, your initial assessment was something like 'sociopathic to the point of discouraging contact with any but the few he trusts'. Oh, and that gem about me being narcissistic to the point that I value the condition of my paint over the safety of other mechs in my unit."

"At the time, that WAS the case you know. Mechs do change. Especially in war." The psychologist offered in a sort of apology.

"You haven't." He flung back gruffly, but there was no sting to it.

"On the contrary, I feel I have, but perhaps not outwardly. The point is, so have you. As you have proven through many occasions of sacrifice."

The golden mech did not respond, staring straight ahead and schooling his faceplates to hide his emotions behind a gruff mask.

It was as Rung wondered where best to steer the conversation that he noticed his own paint scuffs on the floor.

"Are you leading me in circles?"

"Are you?" He quipped back dodgingly.

"Is there something you do not wish me to see?"

"No... maybe... I don't know. I kind of hoped you'd get bored and leave. Or take a hint."

Rung frowned sightly as his mind started piecing little clues together.

"Would this have anything to do with your pet-"

"Bob."

"...with Bob stealing my stylus?"

The golden mech seemed to debate internally over how much he should reveal before he gave a rather loud ex-vent.

"I've been sending Bob out to find me supplies."

"Supplies?"

"...Art supplies. I show him stuff I want, get him to sniff it, train him to find it and then he goes and looks. He probably thought your stylus was a carbon stick. It's made of a carbon rich alloy I guess."

Rung looked over his stylus, nodding. "Yes, i believe so. So you still make art then? May I see what you've been doing recently?"

Again the frontliner seemed to work through some inner turmoil before reluctantly nodding.

"Fine. But no shrinking it, fraggit. It's not meant to be something I show mechs. I'm only letting you see because you'll understand most of it."

Rung nodded and they headed down a different corridor, Bob moving to follow Rung now, sniffing curiously at the psychiatrists servos, trying to get the stylus out of his grip.

Rung subspaced it and cautiously scratched the insecticon on the helm.

He smiled slightly as Bob whirred and pressed into the contact, eager for more.

"So why did you choose to get a pet? Not that it is uncommon in isolated Cybertronians."

"We didn't 'choose', it just kinda happened."

Rung tilted his helm at that half-afted answer. "Oh? What was the purpose for it?"

"HIM. He's not an 'it'." Sunstreaker grumbled.

"Nono, you misunderstand me... I meant the act, the taking on of the task, catching, training... what made you think to do it?"

"Oh... I guess Ironhide really thought of it first. I mean, he was out there killing the bugs, he noticed things about them. He realised the loners were different to the rest of the swarm. They were smarter for one, he thinks that's why they were alone, they got kicked out of the swarms or they left because they couldn't assimilate with the way the other bugs acted."

"So Ironhide caught him for you?" Rung asked casually.

"Yea, he thought I needed... a companion I guess. Something to keep me occupied while I was stuck in that chair with only Trion the almighty ego for company." He smirked. "Plus he had some idea like Bob would be my extra protection since I couldn't really fight with my legs not working."

"So why 'Bob'? It's an oddly un-Cybertronian name."

"Better than Hunte-" Sunstreaker cut himself off with a bark of feedback as he realised what he'd let slip and looked away.

"That was the name of the human, yes? The one that helped you escape?"

"I'm not talking about it."

The frontliner's voice was colder than solidified nitrogen. But Rung was not about to steer away from what was clearly one of the heaviest emotional burdens weighing Sunstreaker down.

"You must face what happened to you at some stage. Both of you, together I mean."

"That'll be a bit hard since he's dead." The golden mech bit back.

"Not entirely."

For the second time, they stopped dead in the middle of the corridor, but the look Sunstreaker turned on Rung was so intense the psychologist nearly stepped back.

Instead he forced himself to hold his ground and counter with an open sort of calm that diffused Sunstreaker's anger.

"What do you mean 'not entirely'? What kind if slag is that?"

"You were bonded on a neuro-cynaptic level. That is what Ratchet's report states. Therefore you shared, for a small while, one mind. You were both separate identities yes, but parts of you... leaked into one another. If Ratchet had not separated you soon enough, the 'leak' would have continued until you both became a new, melded identity. One lifeform in two bodies. Two brains. He may be dead, but parts of his mind remained imprinted into yours."

Sunstreaker's optics remained cold, hard, cycling tightly, searching Rung's for a lie he wished was there.

"Why didn't Ratchet tell me this?"

"You'll have to ask him that. But I suspect he meant to, and simply didn't want to have to broach the subject unless it became necessary. To be fair, you are not exactly open to discussing the topic."

"Damn slagging right I'm not." He growled, turning to walk again, moving to a door a little way ahead of them and punching his code into the door angrily.

"How eager would you be to discuss the fact one of those filthy organic primitives had been inside you? Had seen everything about you, every secret laid bare, no thought your own. How would you like it if you had to bind yourself to one of the species that tore you into pieces and let you suffer like you were in the seven smelts of the pit?

I asked him to kill me. Even he wouldn't grant me that mercy."

The door opened and Bob bounded in, Sunstreaker stomping in after and not waiting for Rung.

"Mechs liked that stupid meatbag. He had friends. They mourned him. They hated me for not mourning him. You know what the worst part is?"

He turned to face the psychiatrist, who's optics had never left him.

"The worst part is I DID feel bad. And I didn't know WHY. I didn't want to care. I didn't even like the kid. I was glad to be rid of him except that i never WILL be... Ratchet didn't tell me about any... neuro-linko slag, but that doesn't mean i couldn't still feel bits of him in my head. I thought... I thought i must be going nuts at one stage. I HATE Earth. Hate everything on it, every stinkin' thing about it, but I kept getting these feelings. I kept MISSING things about the place I didn't even know about. Chips and pizza, or video games, or the smell of pines... HUMAN things, stuck in my head, and I'm never going to be rid of them!"

He turned, flinging his arm in an angry gesture towards the wall as he stomped over to the window that took up one side of the room and flopped down on a bench that looked like it had been turned into a berth.

At the gesture, Rung finally took his optics off Sunstreaker to examine the room.

It appeared to be an observation lounge somewhere overlooking the aft section of the ship. There were clear signs it had not been used as an observation deck in some time, refuse and boxes Sunstreaker hadn't cleared away that were not his.

The window taking up half the room let in glow from the engines, providing an odd sort of moody lighting that was... rather appealing.

As Rung turned to the wall Sunstreaker had gestured at, his mouth opened slightly.

The whole wall was covered in images. Somewhere, the golden mech had managed to find a range of paint colours, and with them he had covered the wall in a haphazard mural, painted by the looks of it with his bare servos.

The work was not the ordered, lauded paintings Rung knew to be Sunstreaker's public work.

It was instead a mess of scenes, flowing into one another without being a part of one another.

A landscape from earth... another of old Cybertron's crystal city... what looked like a fuzzy image of the pits of Kaon mid battle from a fighter's point of view... what looked like a picture of Sideswipe half turned to look at the viewer, the silhouette of two humans, the smiling face of Ironhide, a greyed out frame in pieces... and through everything there were these wires, cables, threading through, around and over indiscernible images between the defined scenes.

Every wire led to the middle of the wall, to a circle in which sat two fuzzy blue balls, squashed tight in their tiny space, surrounded by black and cables.

Rung moved closer, focussing in on the two blue dots. When he was standing directly in front of them, he reached out a servo to touch... tracing the very subtle, delicate details of what had looked at first like careless splotches.

But no... they were sparks. Two sparks crammed together.

A representation of the twin spark Sunstreaker shared with Sideswipe?

Rung turned back to Look at Sunstreaker, hunched on his bench as if exhausted, silhouetted against the window.

Bob had moved to stare up at his master, audial protrusions flicking and lowered as he made a plaintive sort of whine.

Sunstreaker reached a heavy servo out to pat him.

"He was afraid I'd try to kill myself if he left me alone."

the golden mech murmured as Rung moved over to sit on the end of the bench, looking out the window.

"Who was?"

"Ironhide. He didn't say it. He said it to Trion and didn't mean for me to hear. That's why he got Bob. He wanted something to keep me company... keep me distracted."

The golden mech's vocaliser was laced with static, telling Rung just how little he'd used it to be straining it already from such little use as their conversation.

"I thought briefly about calling him Hunter but... couldn't do it. Went with an Earth name because 'Hide suggested it and thought it was funny."

"That sounds about right to me. Ironhide has seen... far too many young mechs take their own lives over the course of the war to not be expecting and trying to prevent it where he can." The peach and cream mech explained quietly, scratching Bob's helm as the insecticon unceremoniously moved out from under Sunstreaker's unresponsive servo to flop his helm on Rung's lap.

"Without him here I don't... I'm not sure what i should be doing. I just knew I couldn't stay on Cybertron. Not with all those mechs reminding me what I did to them and trying to get me to talk."

He gave a short, mirthless laugh. "Should have known when i saw you on board that I wouldn't escape having to 'talk' eventually."

"What you haven't talked much about is how you felt about the fact you had to, essentially, save yourself." Rung mentioned quietly.

He looked over at the golden mech, who stared resolutely out the window, once again trying to effect his emotional mask.

"Do I even need to? I made a deal with the Decepticons to let them kill any and all humans they wanted. If that doesn't say how i felt about them abandoning me, i don't know what else to tell you."

"What that tells me is that you were hurt, and you didn't know how to express that short of lashing out."

"I never meant to hurt any of ours. Never. I just... I hated that planet, those humans, so much... It was them I wanted to hurt.. Just them."

"On the contrary... I think perhaps you were prepared to hurt the others in your unit as well. Essentially... you were damaged, you suffered, greatly, and after it all you were not given any indication that they cared enough to find you. So you made them all feel what you felt."

Sunstreaker stood suddenly and moved away, pacing, fists clenching and unclenching.

His engine rumbled, half in aggravation, half in distress.

Rung sat quietly, watching and waiting for the backlash. He'd hit a deep diode and he knew it.

Eventually Sunstreaker walked towards his mural, optics dark, and snarled, punching one of the more shadowy figures in the corner Rung had missed.

He wasn't sure how he'd missed it, the blue optics standing out vividly.

Sunstreaker punched Optimus' face numerous times, until energon spattered the wall and he didn't remove his fist, resting his forehelm against the bulkhead, fans whirring harshly in the ensuing silence.

Bob had moved to cower under the berth-bench, but Rung hadn't even flinched.

He waited patiently for Sunstreaker to sort out his emotional responses. It was a full three kliks before the golden mech spoke.

"I thought I'd gotten used to it. But it was different to me and Sides getting abandoned by our creators. I got over that a long time ago, we were sparked to be a product, that's what we were to them. I accepted that. I accepted I wasn't important enough within the army to waste resources on, but i wasn't... prepared for no one caring. No one but Sideswipe, and then the first thing he says to me... the first thing he wants to talk about is Hunter. I thought he'd get it... thought he knew me better than the others but he was just the same. And Optimus..."

He snarled, grinding his abused fist against the painted face, now impressively dented and energon spattered, benign blue optics captured so realistically in paint staring out impassionately.

"He's supposed to be the symbol of what we stand for. The mech with endless compassion and ability to accept, forgive, absolve. He didn't have time for me. I didn't matter to him, was't important to him. And I could live with that too, if he'd just... said SOMETHING. Anything... just a 'sorry we couldn't find you' or just 'Are you going to be okay'. Everything that happened, and he just... didn't care."

He let his servo fall from the wall and leant back, looking down at his dented knuckle joints, two out of alignment and aching to pit. He embraced the pain. It was easy. It felt like the Pits. Pits had been so much easier. Fight to survive, had to survive, no questioning it, not like now...

"I realised after a while that not only was I not important to the Autobot cause, I was unwanted. I was a burden. That's when I just... stopped trying I guess. Really I just wished I'd snuffed it under Ratchet's scalpel like Hunter. When the bridge happened and the swarm was coming after everyone... I saw my chance, and I took it. I'd been looking for it. I didn't do it to save them, I did it to save me."

Rung had dealt with many a suicidal patient. He had learnt a certain amount of detachment was necessary. But he was not cold sparked... that would be very counter productive to his profession.

And Sunstreaker... was one of the more tragic cases. And he felt his spark ache for the mech, less from what he was telling him, and more because he knew how hard it was for Sunstreaker to voice it. After all, the mech had internalised it to his end. It was nothing short of a miracle that he had survived what he had.

It was perhaps... unfortunate in a way that he HAD survived it, but then Rung did not discount the will of Primus. He had seen a lot of misplaced faith in his time, and much that made him wonder how any higher being could allow such terrible suffering, but Sunstreaker's survival against the odds had to mean something. There had to be some cosmic purpose behind it, and he liked to hope that perhaps it was so the mech could enjoy some form of healing and coming to terms with himself enough to find peace.

"If you were to meet Optimus again, is there anything you think you'd like to say to him?" Rung asked softly.

The golden mech turned slightly to him, arms limp by his sides.

"...No. I don't... want to see him. If i do, I'll probably just try to avoid him. I want to forget."

"These paintings look more like a reminder than an attempt to forget." He observed neutrally.

"I said I WANT to forget, not that I CAN. I just... I need to know what I am now. That's why this is here. This me... attempting to understand what I'm supposed to do now. There are things i need to remind myself of so I don't..."

"Become someone you don't like?" Rung supplied when Sunstreaker trailed off into a lengthy silence, making no sign he knew how to finish that train of thought.

The frontliner gave a non committal sort of noise that Rung took as a yes.

"That is a good thing. You are fully aware of what your experiences have done to you. You are clearly making an effort not to turn into something you dislike. You know... that extreme narcissism I saw in you so many vorns ago... is probably the thing that is working to keep you from becoming something you dislike."

Sunstreaker snorted and turned his helm fully to look at the psychiatrist with smouldering optics.

"You mean I'm saved by my ego?... Lucky me." His tone was wry, but he wandered back over, tension drained from him once more to be replaced with a weariness to rival that which Ratchet displayed.

"That doesn't help my sociopathic behavioural tendencies." he murmured as he sat heavily on the berth, Bob poking his helm out from underneath to look at him with big, over-bright optics.

"Perhaps not. But you know you are not a mech without skill, clearly". He gestured lightly at the mural. "And I know that art is not your only skill at that. You are by no means a useless mech, or a burden."

"Maybe not here." Sunstreaker consented in a murmur.

Rung took a chance, reaching out to lay his servo on the frontliner's shoulder, getting only a mild flinch in return and a slightly quizzical look.

"As far as I am concerned, you are not a useless mech anywhere. And you know as well as I that Ironhide would agree. It is important to remember when you are surrounded by those who do not know you that you still have the support of those that do."

To even the peach and cream mech's surprise, the tiniest, barest trace of a smile tugged at the corner of Sunstreaker's mouth.

Rung smiled softly in return and stood to leave, sensing that most of his work was done for today, but he was caught around the wrist by a servo.

He looked at Sunstreaker, slightly surprised but inviting him to say whatever it was he clearly needed to.

The golden mech opened his mouth, closed it, looked away, and cycled his vents before speaking without looking at him.

"Stay a while?... I'm... tired of being alone. It... I can't stop myself from... thinking, when it's just me."

Rung nodded understandingly and sat back down, entertaining Bob with scritches again as his lap was promptly filled with insecticon head.

"So...why this room? It seems rather nice, but I'm wondering why it is not still used as an observation deck." Rung asked curiously, looking around.

"Oh, there was a huge energon spatter across the wall I painted on and remains of a long-dead mech in the corner. It looked like one of the spark-eaters former victims, I incinerated the frame and painted over the stain, I figured no-one else would want this room anyway if they knew."

Rung gave him a queasy look. "Ah...I see... um... I think it's very safe to say you are right." He shuddered to remember the whole episode with the spark-eater, and Sunstreaker seemed to realise his discomfort belatedly with a slightly apologetic look.

"Oh, yea... heard about what Rodimus did. Want me to punch him for you? I actually hate the guy."

"No no... that's quite alright. I'm... no big fan of his either. To his credit, his plan was a good one, but it was wholly unnecessary for him to not just tell me what he wanted. I would have jumped out of the way in time."

Rung noticed Sunstreaker absently rubbing his damaged fist as he sought a change of subject.

"You should probably go to Ratchet and get that servo seen to soon. I'm sure you know him better than I, but I get the impression he does not suffer mechs to leave their injuries for a long time before going to him. I've been hearing stories about his accuracy with wrenches at a distance."

Sunstreaker smirked, looking the energon coated, dented plating over with mild interest.

"Yeah. We used to joke he should have been a sniper. We'dve won the war in a vorn if he was."

"I sense that you have many stories concerning your old CMO... I wouldn't mind hearing them if you'd indulge me."

Sunstreaker gave him a bemused look and nodded, launching into a particularly infamous story about the effectiveness of Ratchet's wrath on interrupting Decepticons during a field operation, Bob leaking mouth lubricants over Rung's thigh as he absently scratched behind an audial protrusion.


	2. Chapter 2

Sunstreaker sat alone in the corner. Well, alone except for Bob, who was sprawled happily over his pedes.  
He was starting to like Swerve. Swerve was loud, obnoxious, nothing he said was worth listening to, so he made great background noise to drown out Sunstreakers thoughts.

Even better, he didn't ask too many questions of him, and he didn't limit his Engex consumption. The stuff was potent as any bootleg slag the golden mech had gotten in Kaon, and he had enough credits stashed in remotely accessible accounts to pay for as much as he pleased.

Which is what he did, quietly drinking himself into oblivion.

Since talking with Rung, he had not been feeling better. Actually, he'd felt worse, because the lid was off the jar, and his memories tended to jump to the surface with very little prompting.

As a result he'd done a lot of painting to try and purge it from himself, but now he was finding it nearly impossible to recharge. When he tried, he got in maybe a few breems to a cycle before the replays began.

He'd discovered a decent overcharge could mute the memories enough to allow a little more recharge, so he frequented the place a little more often.

He took the fact no one questioned this or acted concerned for his welfare as a sign it was probably the best solution.

Anyway, he saw the same crowd in there so often he guessed that they thought he was doing what they were… enjoying the place as much as possible before Magnus got wind of it.

Occasionally he spoke to whoever sat their aft down at his table. It was mostly just bots he didn't know trying to see if he was like what the mechs he'd served with painted him as.

Sunstreaker was honestly indifferent to their opinion. He didn't need their approval, and he wasn't going to be a different mech to try and gain the 'friendship' from mechs he honestly didn't find a liking for.

So far his favourite was Cyclonus… because Cyclonus had made no attempt to talk to him other than necessary pleasantries, and he didn't make any indication that they need be any more familiar than a simple head nod of recognition on sight.

Odd how he'd probably trust Cyclonus at his back in a fight more than anyone he'd spoken actual sentences with.

The again, the mech may feel no obligation to HAVE his back in a fight, so it was just as well he had Bob, he supposed.

He reached down to scritch the insecticon on the helm, getting a pleased rumble in response.  
He swirled the blue liquid in his glass and looked into it, automatically analysing the hue and working out what paints would most accurately match it. Noting the way the light of it bounced off the surface of the table.

He took a swig and let his eyes rest on the table, unfocussed.  
"Enjoying yourself, huh?"

Sunstreaker didn't bother going to the trouble of lifting his helm and focussing his optics.  
He recognised Trailbreakers voice. The mech was overcharged too. As badly as him. Though he wasn't sure how, since the black mech tended to gesture a lot, which meant half his drink exited the glass without entering his tanks.

"I was." He murmured neutrally, taking another sip and getting a look at Trailbreaker as he tipped his helm back. On his pedes, he felt Bob shift a little.  
"So, sell anyone else out lately?" the Black bot slurred roughly.

"No, sacrifice yourself to a horde of insecticons lately?" He sniped back coldly.

"Don't act like that was any big favour. Once a traitor, always a traitor." The mech countered sourly, jabbing his finger at Sunstreakers faceplates.  
"Oh, OK. Dying once isn't repentance enough. Well, I'm here, how 'bout you shoot me and make it twice. That should do it, right? Just don't miss, I like the job done properly." He sat back, arms open and faceplate set in a hard, defiant expression.

Trailbreaker seemed to seriously consider it for a moment before scowling, lips twisting into a sneer.

"Don't tempt me. You don't get off that easy."  
"Obviously." Sunstreaker rumbled, disappointed as he picked up his glass and slogged the rest back. 

"You don't even care, do you?" Trailbreaker snarled, fist clenching against the tabletop as the golden mech fixed that blank, cold look on him again.  
"Not that I feel like I have to explain myself, but I didn't do it because I wanted the Cons to kick our skid plates. I did it to the humans. And I never said I was smart for thinking Starscream upheld bargains."

"You've got slag for processors if you think I believe you gave a flying piston about the rest of us. No one is that dumb, you knew exactly what Screamer would do with that information." the defence specialist scoffed.

"Amazing what anger does to your rationality circuits. Anyway, don't cry at me about it, I gave you your option. Kill me or go get an appointment with Rung, I'm not here to make you feel better about it."

"How bout I see how long it takes to kill you with my fists in your face?" Trailbreaker stood, looming over Sunstreaker, and immediately jerked back with a yelp as Bob rammed his shins, clicking furiously and making a loud buzzing sound with the plating on his back.  
"Down boy." Sunstreaker murmured absent mindedly. 

"Hey hey, 'Breaker, better watch your step, I hear Bob can get mighty frisky when he latches onto your legs, better keep em' outta his reach." Swerve popped up, seemingly out of nowhere, and Sunstreaker had to admit it was the first time he was actually HAPPY to have him up close.  
Obviously he'd seen trouble a mile off and was intervening to make sure nothing happened to bring attention to his establishment from the higher ups.

The fact he disguised it with ridiculous banter told the golden mech that Swerve really had found his calling in running a bar.

Trailbreaker gave Sunstreaker and Bob a last, filthy look before stalking away.

"What was under his plati- Oh, wait, that was about that thing you did huh? Ouch… need another drink? Same as usual? I'll put it on your tab." 

The golden twin didn't even have to say a word, nodding to Swerve as he leant heavily on the table, hanging his helm and watching Trailbreaker out of the corner of his eye as he rejoined Blaster, Powerglide, Inferno and Hound in the opposite corner.

By the time the golden mech was ready to leave, Inferno and Hound had long gone, visibly less and less able to deal with Trailbreaker's sour mood.  
The black mech had gotten more and more aggravated as the cycles had stretched on, and it seemed from the looks Powerglide was giving his companion that even he was a little unsettled by the normally mellow mech's attitude when overcharged.

"Ooookaaaay Bob. Leeets go." Sunstreaker was exceptionally good at walking straight while nearly blind drunk, but he knew he'd only get about halfway to his quarters before he fell flat on his faceplate.  
Which was where a neat little trick he'd taught his insecticompanion came in handy. 

He attached Bob's lead to the stud on the bots collar fairing, then linked the other end to his bumper, and transformed in the hallway.  
Enthusiastically, Bob scrabbled against the decking, getting purchase and dragging his master home.  
Mechs still stopped on the edges of the hall to stare in puzzled amusement as the Lamborghini was towed along by the Insecticon.

All he had to do was steer so he didn't hit the walls… too much. Eventually they got to the right corridor, and he needed to change up to enter his code.  
His transformation was sluggish, and he managed to snag the lead in something.  
"Fffffraggin' slagger bloody pit spawn-"  
As he finished yanking it out of his wheel-well, Bob whirred and hissed.  
By the time Sunstreaker had looked at him to see what the matter was and turned around to face whoever was coming, he got shoved to the floor on his back with a loud clang.

Bob made an angry shrieking noise as he attempted to defend his master and found himself blocked by an invisible force.  
Sunstreaker recognised the feeling, having been restrained like this when being subdued from a broken up fist fight more than once.  
"What the SLAG Trailbreaker?"

"What the slag do you THINK?" The black mech rumbled, stomping slowly down the hall to loom over the pinned warrior.  
Either Trailbreaker held his engex well, or he really hadn't gotten as much IN him as Sunstreaker thought, because he was coherent enough to keep his field generator going without it faltering or fluctuating.

"Don't you think it's about time someone gave you a little payback?"

"You're still on about that?" Sunstreaker growled, gritting his denta against one another as the force field was rippled across his throat tubing in a warning press.

The ripples moved out across his frame, concentrating, narrowing to pin just his legs and arms.  
The golden mech snarled up at Trailbreaker, optics flashing when the mech raised an arm laser, but he didn't point it at his pinned quarry.

A shot put an end to the high pitched screeching behind him and Sunstreaker's head snapped back.  
"BOB!"  
"Relax, he's stunned. No point killing him, not his fault he's your _friend."  
_The frontliner took his optics off the lump of spiky yellow and purple to glare at Trailbreaker as the defence specialist loomed over him.  
He struggled, but he really had no means to break the field's hold.

"Funny, you care more about a dumb bug than anyone you shed energon with." Trailbreaker's faceplate contorted into an ugly, bitter scowl and Sunstreaker felt another field ripple, concentrating in on his shoulder joints.  
He grunted as pressure built in the joints, the field expanding between the gaps to slowly tear the mechanisms apart.  
"You think this is worse?" He spat, the overcharge and pain making his helm swim and his optics flicker.  
"Than what? What we suffered from your betrayal? Oh no, this is just a ta-"  
"Than what those filthy _meat bags _did to me." Sunstreaker snarled.

At that, the pressure held, Trailbreaker seeming to digest that information slowly.

Sunstreaker cried out, engine whining as the force field was expanded explosively in the joints before dissipating.  
He refreshed his fritzing optics a few times, shoulder joints both having made sick popping and cracking sounds as they were wrenched open and ruined.  
"You're… pretty s-slagging sick when you wanna be… Breaker. Could almost… believe you were… a pits mech… like me." He rasped as he cycled air hard, adjusting to the agony and getting control of it.

"So you think because you suffered… the rest of us had to as well, huh?" Trailbreaker rumbled, accent broad with the effect of the engex.

"And you figure torturing me some more will put me straight?" Sunstreaker snarled back coldly.

He cried out as pressure suddenly exploded through his knee joints, shattering them both and making his engine gutter.  
"No, but it sure as pit makes me feel better." the black mech growled.

With his arms and legs handicapped by the injuries, Sunstreaker felt the force field narrowed in to simply keep him pinned to the floor. Less effort for Trailbreaker, and much easier for him to uphold indefinitely with his overcharge of fuel.

The defence specialist moved forward, looking Sunstreaker up and down with darkened visor, standing with his pedes either side of golden hips and crouching slowly, the pressure increasing over Sunstreaker's chest plates.

The frontliner, hissing his ex-vents through his denta as he tried to suppress the excruciating pain of his exploded joints, grunted as his windshield cracked under the force field pressure.

Trailbreaker's engine revved angrily, and the pressure slowly began to dent the golden chest plates, right in the centre of his auto brand.  
"I could put a field around your spark and crush it y'know. Or just slowly constrict it and disrupt the natural pulse rate until it went into shock and collapsed… flash out… I hear that's an excruciatingly painful way to die." Trailbreaker murmured quietly, as if merely observing these things out-loud to himself.

"So why don't you already?" Sunstreaker spat, optics a little paler and brighter than usual.  
"Because I'm not a Decepticon. I'm better than that." He rumbled, petulant tone underscored by the tiniest hint of hesitance.

"Oh sure, ngh!… because torturing… a defenceless mech… is totally Autobot- AGH!"  
The golden mech panted, letting out small keens as he reeled from the sudden wrench against his chest plates where Trailbreaker had ripped out his Autobrand with his force field.

"So on a scale from one to humans, how am I doing so far?" the black mech sneered.

Sunstreaker struggled to get his engine under control, twitching slightly from the near-overwhelming barrage of pain signals from all points of his frame.

"Sorry… Br-reaker… you'll never… ha-ave anything on those… pit-slag spawned… flesh bags…"  
"Of course… because they didn't just hurt you, did they? They got _inside _you… messed with your head… well guess what, that's how it felt for us… Prime nearly died 'cause of you. Lotta mechs shattered by you, in _here_."

He jabbed his chest plates. "And in _here._" He tapped his helm, engine whining slightly as it revved high with emotion.

"The distrust that infected us nearly tore us all apart. You know how it felt? We felt violated… I think I know how to share that feeling with you…"

Sunstreaker's optics widened as he felt pressure on his codpiece, giving a strangled cry as an internal expanding field popped it off.

"Breaker… don't… you're overcharged. You're not like this. You're going to regret it when you sober u-"  
Sunstreaker grunted, vocaliser hissing with feedback as a micro-field paralysed it. 

"Don't tell me how I'm going to feel as if you give a DAMN SLAG!" He snarled, baring his denta angrily, lip-plates squealing from being contorted in rage.

The muted mech gave him a last, intense look and shook his helm.  
Trailbreaker growled and pulsed a field into the exposed valve, over-expanding the sensor-laden lining and causing the mech beneath him to convulse in agony, silenced by his other field concentration.

He mercilessly pulsed the field in the valve, as if pounding a far too large object into the golden mech, violating him hard and deep, and where it would hurt the most.  
He heard lining tear, knew he'd crushed a few nodes, and only stopped once he heard the socket at the top of the port dislodge.  
He had watched Sunstreaker's face with a painful sort of satisfaction the whole time, a knot of cold conviction forming in his tank.

Sunstreaker had purged his engex laden tanks the moment his valve had torn, and Trailbreaker let him turn his helm, looking behind once he was done to see a decent trickle of energon coming from the shattered interface equipment.

"Guess it'll be a while before you can bend over and take a frag from your pet over there." he sneered, giving a short, cold laugh and standing, looking over his handiwork.  
"And in case you were wondering, I turned the camera that watched this hall when I came down, so don't think Red Alert is going to be coming to help your sorry aft. You can send your little friend off to fetch Ratchet when he wakes up."

Sunstreaker's frame still twitched and shuddered, systems in shock from the brutal, intense attack.

He didn't look at Trailbreaker, too busy shutting down parts of his emotional centre internally, most of his processing power spent on just handling and coping with the pain signals.

The black mech crouched by his helm and grasped a helm fin, crushing it slightly and making Sunstreaker's optics fritz as he forced him to meet his gaze.

"You just remember this feeling… this is the feeling you brought down on every bot fighting on earth… every single one… If we had to live with it, so do you."

He released his helm, smacking it against the decking as he shoved away and walked off down the hall.

Sunstreaker stared at the medbay ceiling, optics dim and faceplate blank.

_It still wasn't as bad. _

_It… was bad, but it still wasn't AS bad…_

"How you holding up?" Ratchet's voice had taken on that same, weirdly careful tone around him again… the same one he'd used when he'd woken up after being separated from Hunter.

He gave Ratchet a look and went back to staring at the ceiling.

"First Aid tells me you refuse to name the mech that attacked you."

That was better. That held that old gruff, irritated edge of the REAL Ratchet.

He didn't have any response to that though, so he just shuttered his optics once.  
"You do realise I KNOW no mech but Trailbreaker could do this, right?"

Again, not really something he could respond to, but he was feeling oddly soothed by how Ratchet was getting more and more agitated.

Beside him, the old medic sighed, dragging over a stool and sitting heavily.

Sunstreaker turned his helm to look at him, slightly curious, silently questioning Ratchet's intention in making himself comfortable.

The red and white mech merely returned his questioning gaze with a calculating one.  
"Look, I know bots are still angry at you for the Starscream thing… but you and I both know you've paid your dues for that. Why'd you let him do this to you? You could have taken him, I mean… It's Trailbreaker, not Grimlock."

"We were both slagged off our faceplates and he got the jump on me." Sunstreaker rasped blandly, giving a minute shrug since any large movement of his shoulders sent blinding pain shooting up to his processor.

He was in full traction to restrict movement as it was, mostly mag-locked to the med-berth to prevent him from ruining First-Aid's tedious and half finished repairs that had taken the young medic all night cycle.

"How's Bob doing?"

Ratchet sighed at the obvious question dodge, but answered anyway.  
"He's fine, Hound took a look and declared his damage superficial. He's kinda sulky, but then he probably has a headache. Chromedome and Rewind volunteered to take care of him."

"Oh good, he likes them. Make sure they don't feed him too many energon goodies though, or he'll just get hyper and purge on them."

"Did he say anything to you? Or did he just attack you?"  
Sunstreaker gave Ratchet a rather exasperated look.  
"Why does it even matter? Aren't you supposed to, y'know, be a bit more thoughtful with rape victims?"

Ratchet scowled at him. "Yeah, except you already let me know how little you cared about that kind of violation several vorn ago. I know full well the resistances you build in the Pits, what I want to know is what frame of mind he was in to do something this slagging disgusting. He mighta been bottling his anger, and overchugged, but that doesn't excuse ANYTHING he did to you. This is the sort of damage I might expect from Vortex, never mind just a regular Con, and certainly not an Autobot."

Sunstreaker cycled his vents in a sigh, staring up at the ceiling again and remaining silent.

The medic gave a resigned huff.  
"Fine, fine, I get it. If you're not gonna talk to me, you're still going to have to talk to Rung you know."

He got up with a slight groan, pistons hissing in a familiar way that Sunstreaker found comforting.

"I'm ok with that." He murmured. In fact, he had a fair few questions for the psychiatrist. Like how the slag he was supposed to recharge now when his meta wouldn't shut-up.

"Well that's great. You'll talk to a bot you're barely acquainted with, but not your CMO of how many millions of years who's pulled your aft back from the brink how many times?"  
"Never said I didn't appreciate that." Sunstreaker responded quietly.

Ratchet turned a slightly less irritated look on him. "Yeah, well… he'll be in to see you in about a cycle or so. He's talking to Trailbreaker in the brig at the moment."

The red and white mech fetched some tools and returned, settling down to work on the shattered joints, muttering now and then about the finicky damage and cursing out the defence specialist.  
"Ratchet?"  
"Hmmm?" He glanced at the golden mech.

"You want me to paint those up for you when my arms are working again?"

Sunstreaker nodded at the predominantly blue servos buried about six inches into his shoulder.  
Ratchet gave a soft rumble. "Yeah. That'd be good, thanks."

"He acted like he gave a slag about ME, when I wanted to make him hurt… as much as I could. What the slag is that even about? Some slaggy attempt to make me stop?"

Rung made a note of the lack of conviction in Trailbreaker's tone.

The mech was clearly at a stage somewhere between horrible self-loathing and trying to justify what he'd done to himself.

"Are you aware of his history as a gladiator?"

Trailbreaker shifted at the question, grimace tightening slightly in confusion.

"Yeah… every Bot and Con knows he and his brother were in the pits. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just go with me here… how much do you know about the pits? What the conditions were, what the fighters would do to one another while incarcerated there?"

Another, more openly uncomfortable shift.

"I heard… things. Never knew anything for certain, never went there. Knew one bot that was. He only talked about it when he was tanked. No one liked to stick around because… all he talked about were the horrible things he'd seen happening there."

"Did you ever hear him talk about the frequent rape that occurred? That was in fact forced upon unwilling participants as a form of entertainment for those with much looser morals?"

Rung's voice was calm and unaccusatory, but his gaze on Trailbreaker was sharp and pointed.

"I… yeah, but…"

There was a very uncomfortable pause in which the black mech floundered for some kind of footing, the topic throwing him as far as how he was supposed to respond.  
"I cannot reveal the history of my other patients, but you are an intelligent mech. I'm sure you can work out what I'm getting at here. Statistically, the likelihood that any mech who spent longer than an orn in the pits in Kaon was raped or forced to commit rape, or willingly committed it, is ninety-seven percent."

He let that figure sink in, a little colour leeching from Trailbreaker's visor.

"Now, in light of that, it _may_ be concluded that you were not his first attacker in that capacity. It may also be possible that he was in a position similar to yours once, as an attacker. He and his brother were in there much longer than an orn. His… advice to you, was likely a genuine attempt to get you to reconsider for your OWN sake."

Trailbreaker buried his faceplate in his servos and shook his helm.

"Not that you ought not to feel remorse for your actions, which it's clear to me you do to some degree… but your attack was not something new to Sunstreaker."

"I… I still hate him… but I hate myself more… Primus, I'm lower than a Con…" He moaned into his servos, continuing to shake his helm, visor dim.

"My advice is to let go of your hate for him. Keeping in mind he has been in your position before, how well do you think he likes himself?" Rung stated quietly, still watching Trailbreaker with impartial intent.

The black bot dropped his servos from his faceplate and slumped with his elbows on his knees, the energon-bars of his brig cell throwing stark shadows across his grimacing faceplate.

Rung sighed softly and stood, making a last note on his in-built display before folding it against his frame again.

"I'll be back for another talk tomorrow, at which time Ultra Magnus will also be present to assess your re-offence likelihood. If you wish to talk to me again before that, you can call for me, but I may have other patients to see first."

"Tell him… tell him I didn't… I'm sorry." Trailbreaker blurted as the psychiatrist walked just beyond his cell.  
Rung turned back momentarily to fix him with a neutral look.  
"I'm afraid you'll have to tell him that yourself, for it to be truly meaningful Trailbreaker."


	3. Chapter 3

"So are you gonna actually talk to him, or just clam up and pretend everything is fine again?"

"Shut up."

"I'm serious Sunstreaker. Don't do what you did when I gave you your body back, not when we've got a fully qualified-"  
"I said shut-up. Do you want me to finish this or not?"

"I can do it myself you know. It's just more of a hassle."

"And nowhere near as well done, so either shut-up or change the subject, because I am not going there with you."

Sunstreaker scowled as he ran his brush painstakingly carefully down Ratchet's servo. He knew Ratchet had turned his sensory feedback right down so his ministrations wouldn't effect him, but all the same he was exceedingly careful.

Medics servos were second to none, and he'd heard First Aid talking to the CMO about his... acquisition of these new ones.

Sunstreaker was certainly not one to judge when it came to cannibalising the parts of mechs living or dead. As far as he was concerned, Ratchet had been lucky as far as timing and circumstance went. He didn't know the full Delphi story, just that those involved did not want to talk about it.

Something he understood implicitly.

"You're not even gonna ask, are you?" Ratchet grunted, silently appreciating the care Sunstreaker took to not disrupt the mechanisms in his palms.

"About what?"

"How I get my aft so slagging shiny, what do you think?" The medic tilted his helm with a wry not-quite-smirk not-quite-grin on his faceplate, trying to get a look at Sunstreaker's features to gauge his response.

There was the ghost of a half-grin of amusement before the golden mech's features returned to neutral broodiness. "Hey, it's your business, but if you want tell me, I won't stop you."

A half shrug and a few more deft but skilled strokes of the brush, turning blue to red.

"Not particularly interested in divulging the whole thing, no. I was just making an observation of YOUR lack of curiosity." Ratchet murmured gruffly.

"So what, you don't want to talk about it but you want me to ask?" Sunstreaker glanced up, cocking an orbital ridge. "You sure you aren't actually looking for an excuse to tell someone? I just assumed whatever the plague was down there, it got one of the medics and you salvaged his servos. And that now you feel guilty for it or something."

"Something like that. Except he was the head medic, a bot I trained, the creator of the plague and a traitor deliberately killing his patients to feed the leader of the DJD's transforming habit."

"...So, no guilt then?"

"It's a little more complicated than that." Ratchet answered with an edge of irritation.

Sunstreaker just shrugged lightly again. "Why don't YOU go to Rung then?"

"Professional courtesy."

Sunstreaker looked up and gave him a confused and questioning look at that, the medic giving a small 'tch' of amusement.

"I'm a medic Sunstreaker. Our morality programming is notorious for winding us up into the tightest balls of conflicted coding that exist in a functional bot. I learnt a long time ago that prodding the knot is a dangerous affair, and unwinding it requires more than a light-weight therapist. And I mean that in a literal sense. 'Do no harm' is one of the worst codes of conduct to have in a millions of vorns long war. I need physical sparring partners to tackle my problems. Preferably mechs larger than me who can take a beating."

Sunstreaker nodded in understanding. "And if he prodded your ball of fragged code clashes, I'm guessing he'd end up with a broken jaw?"

"Exactly. And he knows it. He has my old file from the psychologist who had the misfortune of finding out the hard way. I was prescribed specialised sessions for tackling the conflicts, but a psych has to evaluate suitable mechs for the job. As it is, I'm not due for another code de-tangling until the end of the vorn anyway."

"Considering the events of Delphi, I would actually be stepping that up to now, but I do not want you damaging your new servos. We may have to find another method for tackling the code conflicts in the interim." a calm voice floated across the ward.

Sunstreaker turned his helm to see Rung wandering down towards the desk they were sitting at, going back to concentrating on Ratchet's servos with a more pronounced scowl.

Rung looked unperturbed by the reaction, greeting Ratchet with a nod and a serene, if not muted smile.

"We can pause this and finish later if you wanted to see Sunstreaker now." Ratchet said politely, with an edge of apprehension as to the frontliner's reaction.

"Oh, no, that's alright, you can finish what you're doing, there's no hurry. I'd actually like to stay and watch... if that's alright with you both... I'm just interested to see you work Sunstreaker."

The golden mech's frown dropped, replaced by a puzzled look as he glanced up at Rung, considering him for a moment.

It looked to the psychiatrist for a moment as if he'd ask why, but then he just shrugged and went back to his neutral grimace.

Ratchet nodded to a chair over by a berth and Rung pulled it over to sit at the end of the desk, leaning back in a very relaxed manner and lacing his digits in his lap.

"I know it must seem odd for me to want to watch you paint servos, it's just I'm interested in your technique. I dabble in painting myself with my models, I sort of hoped I might... well, learn something."

"Doubt it, but whatever." Sunstreaker murmured, detailing the joints of the thumb with deft precision, not looking up at Rung as the mech smiled gently.

"How is your collection? It's gotten quite beat up in the short time we've been jovially hiking about the galaxy." Ratchet asked with wry humour to his tone.

"Oh, it's all in tact. Well... I put it back together, but Primus only knows how long that will last." He sighed.

Sunstreaker let the meaningless banter between the other two waft over his helm, concentrating on his task with single minded determination and patience.

He kept his processor distracted and occupied by concentrating on keeping the paint a good consistency (too little thinner and the texture streaked, too much and he'd have to apply another coat), and making sure he covered all the parts evenly, careful not to let the paint run down into joints or coat wires,. This was why servos were better painted by... well, servo. Airbrush was fast and easy, but it was hard to stop the paint from getting into joints, or drying between them and reducing flexibility.

Of course, Wheeljack had developed a paint that was supposed to be 'smart' and didn't stick joints or chip easily, but they had none on board, so old fashioned enamel was their only option.

Sunstreaker had finished Ratchet's left servo, and was just completing the palm of the right when he realised he was being addressed and looked up.

"Sorry, I didn't realise you were lost in thought... I was just wondering how your repairs were going? I meant to come and check on you in the morning when I heard what happened, but I ended up having to talk Whirl down from disgorging Xaaron." Rung asked, polite and apologetic. Sunstreaker noted he'd moved closer, elbows on the desk and fingers laced together under his chin.

Unsure if the mech was trying to subtly analyse him or genuinely just interested for the sake of being nice, he decided to indulge him. "Fine."

Well. Indulge him as much as he would anyone else. He was sure the mech would understand. That was basically his function after all. Since their lengthy interaction in his 'quarters' about an orn ago, he'd had time to over-analyse their conversation, and now was as lost about how to talk to him as he'd always been, his processor treating the mech like a hostile yet to prove he was trustworthy.

"Good, I didn't think Ratchet would take long to have you good as new." He gave another of his serene smiles, as if genuinely pleased Sunstreaker was once again physically whole.

The golden mech wasn't entirely sure what to make of that, but he wasn't about to correct him, even though Ratchet had yet to fix his valve simply because he was having Perceptor tool out a few components for it they didn't have.

And there was also the grey patch welded over where his Autobot symbol had been, but he wasn't about to talk about that either.

"What ratio are you using for the thinner?"

The question was such a sharp change of tack that Sunstreaker took a moment to answer, even though the number was etched into his processor. "One point two five six parts in three. Enough to smooth, not enough to require more than one coat." he responded deftly.

"Ah, I see. I tend to use rounded amounts, usually three in seven parts, I do need it quite thin, and I tend to do double coats. Triple for the highlights." The orange and cream mech responded sedately, making Sunstreaker faintly uneasy with how intently he watched his servos work.

He usually hated gawking spectators when he was working. Critical analysis of his technique didn't make him feel any better about having an audience, but he tolerated it since the mech didn't comment or ask too many questions.

They sat in silence for a while, and Sunstreaker felt a little awkward. He wasn't sure if Rung had mentioned paint to try and get him to start talking about art, or if he was just expecting him to keep the conversation going with something like some sort of tag team interaction, but he was not about to play ball on that front. Conversation was not his strong point. And frankly, he hated when mechs tried to fill silence with unnecessary noise when there was really nothing worth wasting words over.

He chanced a sidelong look at the psychiatrist, who's helm was slightly tilted, his gaze intent on what Sunstreaker was doing. Huh. Maybe he actually was just interested in absorbing technique. He certainly didn't look like he was expecting conversation, so the golden mech relaxed and let his focus narrow back down to his work again.

He noticed Rung and Ratchet starting up another conversation between them at some point, but

didn't pay any attention as to the subject matter, carefully detailing the rest of the servo as he had the first. It came as something of a surprise to him when he realised he was done.

"I'm glad I took you up on this Sunstreaker. Hopefully I won't have to be touching them up as often as I figured. Guess I should stick them under the curing lamp for a while and let you two go. You're not cleared completely from the medbay though, so when you're done, you'll have to come back. Extra parts should be ready by then, but repairs will have to wait till tomorrow, since I don't want to wreck your work here." Ratchet rose with a soft grunt and a grateful smile at the frontliner, who looked up at him a bit dumbly, as if he was not quite understanding the instructions.

He snapped back to himself and nodded, scowling slightly as he realised his time was up and he was cornered now by the psychiatrist. He packed away the tools and slowly, carefully cleaned his brushes.

Rung waited patiently, watching Ratchet wander off after he'd told him he'd be looking into a session with him and someone who could possibly assist with his coding clashes.

Sunstreaker stood resignedly when he had no more excuses to stall, forcing down the flinch from the twinge in his valve and joints. Ratchet would have turned the interfacial unit's pain receptors off at least, but old, deep damage to his charge generator prevented that. The sensations were dulled, but all his ruined equipment was still online, patch welds and staples the only thing making it so he could walk around. Well, that and his joints had been pieced back together with the help of a short soak in the re-gen tank.

Movement was slow and awkward. He gave Rung a resigned, expectant look. "Where are we doing this?"

The smaller mech had been looking Sunstreaker over a little critically, eyebrows knitted in concern at the way the larger mech moved. Sunstreaker, he had observed, normally moved with a fluidity that belied his ability to excel in hand-to-hand.

The stark change due to his injuries spoke volumes to Rung in terms of what the mech had been through.  
"I think Ratchet was expecting me to drag you off to my office, but I thought before I came that it might be a bit far to walk considering your recent repairs. So I popped in to see First Aid before I came in and he gave me this." He went through the medbay doors and retrieved what he'd left outside, which turned out to be a wheelchair.

Sunstreaker just gave him a look, as if unsure how serious the mech was. If he was trying to be funny in a really wrong way, he was... well, sort of doing it right.  
Rung seemed to notice his less than willing reaction and offered an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, I know you pretty much just got out of one of these, and this one is not even as high tech, but it is the most practical means of getting to a more comfortable place to talk. It doesn't have to be my office, we can go to your quarters if you'd prefer?"

"Honestly, I'm good to walk y'kn-"

"Get in the damn chair or I'll magnalock you to a berth before you can open up any of the microfractures or welds still healing in your joints." Ratchet called from his office.

Sunstreaker scowled and threw a dirty look at the office door before shuffling over and lowering himself gingerly into the chair, Rung looking like he was both trying to look apologetic and not laugh.

Wearing his best 'I will kill you if you speak to me' scowl, he let Rung wheel him out into the corridors. "So, any preference of location?" the mild voice floated over him, at odds with his mood.  
"Whatever is closer."

Sunstreaker kept his optics fixed ahead as they turned a corner and passed Hoist and Grapple, both of whom stopped abruptly in their conversation when they saw him. Rung diffused their shock with a pleasant smile and greeting, and both had the decency to respond in kind and not comment on the golden mech's state, or try to engage him.

The story was similar with whoever else they passed, and the frontliner's expression only softened to confusion when he realised they were not headed directly for Rung's office. "Hey, where are we going?"

"Mmm? Ah, just swinging by the hab suites, won't be long, we just have someone to pick up." Rung answered in the same serene tone as usual.

"Pick someone up? I thought this was supposed to be a session, you don't bring other mech in on-"

Sunstreaker was cut off mid sentence by a load whirring and clicking as they turned another corner.

Bob came bounding down the corridor, dragging Chromedome behind him, the mnemosurgeon apparently having given up trying to control him and letting him drag him around while he sat back on his pede wheels. He gave them both a wave, coming to a neat stop when Bob reached Sunstreaker and leapt up to paw at him with a high pitched keening sound.

The golden mech flinched, but made no move to push Bob away, instead he embraced the insecticon and scritched behind his audials eagerly, rumbling a few words of greeting and praise to the giant bug-bot as it clicked and whirred and nuzzled his chin furiously.

Sunstreaker didn't even notice he was smiling until he looked up and Chromedome was giving him a slightly surprised look.

"Hey... thanks for looking after him."

"No problem. But he uh... sorry if he's still a little hyper, he uses those optics on Rewind, and Rewind can't help giving him treats, and he sort-of threw up once today already but he seems ok?"

"Yeah, he does that. He'll be fine, his tank's just not used to too much rich fuel."

"Ah, OK. Well, we're happy to bug-sit any time, but Rewind may or may not attempt to train him to be his 'steed.'"  
Sunstreaker snorted at that and gave him a wry grin. "That I'd like to see. You guys can take him for walks whenever you want y'know. Seriously, thank you."

Chromedome seemed even more surprised by Sunstreaker's thanks than he was by the fact he'd smiled. The broad shouldered bot waved him, Rung and Bob off cheerfully before wandering away to whatever duties he had.

Run steered Sunstreaker towards his office, Bob trotting along beside them happily, making content little chirrs and snuffling at the wheelchair curiously.

When he was wheeled into Rung's office, Sunstreaker was reminded by the very atmosphere of the place just what they were there to do, and his buoyed mood dissipated quickly. Bob picked up on the change of mood almost instantly, having become very tuned in to his master's field in their time together.

He whined softly and pawed at a pede as if to ask what was wrong, Sunstreaker simply scritching him on the helm in reassurance.

"You can remain in the chair or move to the berth, if you'd prefer? Whatever is more comfortable, but no standing since I'm fairly sure Ratchet would be cross with me for letting you strain your repairs." Rung was polite as ever, positioning him in the middle of the room or thereabouts so he could wheel himself easily to wherever it was he wanted to go.

Sunstreaker nodded in way of response and made his way over to the berth, standing from the chair to carefully lay himself on it with an ex-vent of relief.

The Psychiatrist cleared a few things from his desk into drawers, picking up one to take with him, as well as his model of Ark-1. He then moved to sit in the chair beside the berth, glancing at Sunstreaker to see if he was comfortable or if he'd wound himself up against the prospect of what they were going to talk about.

He seemed a little apprehensive... probably more dreading than anything else, but physically he was not tense. He seemed exhausted. Something about the defeated sort of way he let his limbs rest, like he didn't have the strength to place them comfortably and let them fall however they would.  
"Are you fuelling regularly?" He asked curiously, receiving an upside-down look of slight confusion.

"I collect every drop of ration I get. Gotta feed Bob too."

"Wait... you feed him his own ration, or you take it out of yours?"

The confused look only deepened. "Only get one ration between us."

Rung frowned, consulting the pad in his servo and poking at it a few times. "Well that can't be right... how much do you give him?"

"Half. He needs it or he starts chewing cables and generators, and I don't want them to throw him off the ship, gotta keep him fed up enough that he doesn't do that."

Bob, as if sensing he was the subject, put his front legs up on the berth and tilted his helm at Sunstreaker, who petted him. The insecticon purred and plopped his helm on the berth.

"I'm fine though, I used to run on less and worse quality when I was fighting sometimes."

Rung's frown merely deepened as he sent a few quick enquiries to Rodimus and Red Alert, Rodimus shifting his enquiries to Magnus. Sunstreaker was indeed listed as being on a single ration lot, yet Red had made a notation that he was to keep Bob from interfering with the ship on threat of his banishment from the ship. This condition was signed off by Magnus.  
But surely they realised that with a single ration?...

Rung made a note to investigate and rectify the problem after the session, turning his attention back to Sunstreaker, who's field had relaxed noticably since Bob had popped up for pets.  
He'd been counting on the insecticon working his calming magic on the frontliner.

"Now, how have you been feeling since we talked? Did you feel any relief from being able to get a few things off your chestplates?"

The golden mech shifted slightly on the berth. "Not... really."

Rung was sincerely disappointed to hear that, putting down his pad and picking up his model as he sat back and mulled over that limited response and Sunstreaker's body language.

"I had really hoped giving you a verbal outlet would help in some way. What's made it have the opposite effect?"

Sunstreaker clenched and unclenched the servo not patting Bob as he mulled over his answer. He was not used to opening up, and whenever he thought of his impromptu session with the psychiatrist, his tank churned in shame at how... how easily he'd been cracked open to spill his dark and distasteful contents to a mech he barely knew... how desperately he'd clung to a bot simply because they'd listened. He felt like he'd betrayed his own confidence. He was disgusted with himself.

"It just... it made me think about everything again, and once I start, I can't stop."

"Oh, I see. You tend to dwell then... that is normal you know. It can take a long time to work through things that weigh heavily on your mind. I take it the dwelling has not helped your ability to recharge much?"

The golden mech made an affirmative noise but didn't say anything about the visions that woke him, or the ones that kept him awake, the ones that would not leave him alone until he exorcised them through paint, where they stared at him, never letting him forget...

He shook his helm slightly, shuttering his optics.

"Between half rations and limited recharge, I'm supposing the high-grade is one of the only things keeping you functional."  
Rung did not sound at all judgemental or admonishing. And Sunstreaker supposed he either knew about the frequent drinking through ship talk, or because it was common for bots like him to turn to high-grade when the rest of their life had turned to a miasma of slag.

"And I suppose that makes a neat segway into you getting me to tell you about the assault." Sunstreaker sighed blandly, a bitter edge to his voice, though it came across as more defensive than threatening.

"There is not much about the assault I would need you to tell me about, Trailbreaker's sobered remorse provided me with all the details I would ever need. What I wanted to ask you was are you really as over the whole 'rape thing' as you have told Ratchet you are?"

Sunstreaker's hackles were up when Rung's voice took on a slightly less than neutral edge. He sat up to half turn and glare at the Psychiatrist, who's gaze bored into his with a piercing calm that belied his frighteningly acute observational skills.

"Don't you come at me from that psycho-shrink angle. Don't you try and tell me no mech can just accept their body can be used like a tool without emotional backlash because I lived it enough times to know different. I don't need you or anyone else trying to tell me how to feel about it, because I DON'T feel anything about it. End of story."

Rung held Sunstreaker's hard, challenging gaze as he slowly ran a thumb back and forth over the roof of the Ark model, assessing and carefully thinking through his response.  
"I wish to understand how you've managed that, because- an don't bite my head off... because it is not a common thing, no, but I am not about to tell you it is not a valid coping mechanism. Not until I understand how you came to feel that way... or more to the point, not feel that way."

Sunstreaker deflated like a popped balloon, sagging and sinking back down to the berth to lie there looking distinctly awkward.  
"...You're the first mech who's actually asked me that."

"I thought as much." Rung replied softly, with a tone that encouraged Sunstreaker to take his time answering.

It took the golden mech at least four kliks to even start. "You couldn't let that kind of thing bother you in the pits. It did... of course it did, I hadn't interfaced with more than two mechs outside of Sideswipe before we got dragged into that sorry hell hole. The first time it happened, I fought, and they nearly killed me for it. I learnt pretty quickly that forcing interface was as much a coping mechanism for some bots as it was a means of humiliation by others. It was just another obstacle in the survival race. Fighting and staying alive was important. What happened to my interface equipment wasn't. My equipment was no different to any other part of me, anyone could attack me with any part of themselves. Interface usually didn't mean death when you lost a fight against the rapist. It just... became meaningless."

The golden mech's tone was matter of fact, but Rung could feel a ripple in his field, underlying emotion he'd either buried viciously or had ignored for so long it had weakened to a shadow of it's former self.  
"So you adjusted to the abuse as part of the whole experience of violence? Did you ever feel the need to mourn the loss of your right to own yourself, and your body and intimacy?"

The question was put simply, not emotionally, but rather curiously in an unobtrusive way.  
Sunstreaker still wasn't sure how Rung did it, but he had already popped him open twice now by catching him off guard with his reactions, so he figured in for a credit, in for a chit.

"Yeah. I guess. Maybe? There wasn't much room for... for thinking or feeling. The decision to stop caring was a quick one. And it was... it was mutual. Me and Sides had to do that together. We had to stop feeling about it, because if we held onto emotions and shock and grief and all that, we would falter. We'd show weakness, and be vulnerable, and we'd be DEAD. We chose to survive. Besides... we didn't actually own our bodies until we joined the Autobots. We... we knew it was probably wrong, to decide to not care, but it... it was pretty easy, after a while. To just not care who or what happened to our interface equipment. We just... we did regret not being able to be angry. We regretted how we were forced to consider it no big deal, because it was, and we knew that, but when you have to choose between letting someone frag you like a pleasure drone and letting yourself get brutally killed, we just did what we had to."

Rung watched Sunstreaker's upside-down faceplate as he spoke, and was genuinely surprised by the lack of... of emotional trauma when he spoke. He genuinely had removed his emotional attachment from his interface equipment.  
"I have to say, I'm... surprised. Not a lot of mechs can actually reconcile rape as just another form of physical abuse... emotional subroutines are written into the triggers that drive interfacial equipment. I suppose the sort of duress you and your brother were under is the sort necessary to re-write them."

"Don't get me wrong... when I have the ability to chose, I don't just give it away like a handshake." Sunstreaker corrected him with a slightly annoyed look, as if Rung had implied he was a berth-hopper.  
"That is actually very reassuring to hear. It means you can control the programming and you have not developed a glitch from the circumstantial re-write. However, am I right in assuming you have not found or sought any interfaces for a substantial amount of time?"

"Is that really relevant to anything?" Sunstreaker mumbled, looking up at him, slightly defensive.  
"Well, to a degree. You don't have to discuss your preferences, or feel pressured to seek out a partner any time soon, but I would like to know if you actually have the urge to be active in that sense or not. Or the last time you felt the need to be active in that way. Interface drive is much more heavily linked to mental than physical health, after all, though the two do go together. Not to mention interface is great for stress release of course."

Sunstreaker gave him a look halfway between irritated and amused, a difficult set of emotions to pull off together. "And here I'd pinned you for a prude, turns out you're a slagging sex therapist."  
Rung made a motion as if rolling his optics. "I wouldn't go as far as to say that. But no, any psychiatrist, or psychologist worth their mettle should not be shy or evasive when it comes to discussing interface. It's a healthy and normal function for any cybertronian, and drives to engage in it differ vastly from mech to me-"  
"Yeah yeah you can save me the 'everyone is different and different is normal' speech, I know. I have a drive. It's just... been dormant. More... important stuff to deal with than shooting of a charge." He grumbled.

"I see. Well, when was the last time you felt any need to shoot of a charge?" Rung countered with a hint of playful amusement in his tone.  
Sunstreaker lapsed into serious thought for a moment before grunting out his answer. "Before I got nabbed."

"By the humans?" Rung prompted gently, the ark which he had been turning over in his servos stilling in his lap.  
Sunstreaker gave a nod in way of reply and looked pointedly out a window rather than engage with his surroundings or Rung.

The psychiatrist felt Sunstreaker's field pull against him worryingly tightly. A reaction he both expected and had hoped not to feel.  
"That is rather a long time for it to have shut down. What was it like before then?"

"Normal I guess. Maybe a little high before I got stationed on the mudball. Back when I was head of that campaign to keep the cons off the string of border planets to the main supply route. We did so WELL. We were WINNING. That team... they were great, we were fighting hard and living hard, and it made us all a bit, y'know... close quarters, gotta keep pumped, gotta stay on good form, interfacing was normal, we all just... boosted each other, y'know? And then it just... they stuck me on fragging EARTH and I STILL don't know why."

Sunstreaker's tone was bitter again, and he stared resolutely out the porthole at the stars slowly streaking by.

"So, Earth took you away from the mechs who you liked to interface with. You didn't end up forming any relationships on earth? Friendships or interface partners just to help unwind?"

Sunstreaker snorted at that. "Mechs already there had either made their cliques or stagnated so long they were too uptight to even go there with. Getting assigned there was self-service territory, and only then to try and distract myself because it was so damn boring and pointless half he time."

Rung nodded and sighed softly. "Unfortunately not an uncommon story across the army. You were actually very lucky with your former garrison."

"You don't say." Sunstreaker drawled bitterly.  
"So, I think it's safe to assume events thereafter were the cause of the complete decline of any interface drive. What about since the end of the war?" Rung prompted in what he hoped was a diffusingly calm way without sounding too clinical.

"Are you kidding?... You're serious? How the slag could I have an interface drive after what I did? How could I even THINK of feeling good when most of what's left of the Autobots still hate my guts. When there are bots like Trailbreaker who think I still need to be taught a lesson, who think I don't know torture, who think I feel nothing. I'm a _traitor, _I don't deserve to-" 

He cut himself off as his voice crackled with static, helm turned so that Rung couldn't see his faceplate. He could read in his body and fluctuating field that he had pulled right in again, the mech was still stuck in a loop of self loathing that didn't seem about to break any time soon. 

"Sunstreaker, you may not believe me when I say this, but I will say it anyway, because it seems to me you need to hear it. You did _not _deserve what Trailbreaker did to you. You are not in purgatory, and you should not think that you need to be. You do not deserve to be made to feel more pain than you already have. Than you clearly already do."

"You weren't there." Sunstreaker spoke so quietly it was barely above a whisper, staring at the porthole without really seeing it.

Rung was not entirely sure where 'there' was, but Sunstreaker continued without prompting.  
"You didn't see their faces... you didn't live alongside them knowing everything that happened, everything they suffered was _your fault. _I have _tried_ to tell myself so many times, believe me I have... I've tried to reason away what I did it, and absolve myself, but not even taking out that bridge and living in the hell of my own mind in a mound of dead bugs absolves me of what I did... of the chain of events I started, it went EVERYWHERE. Autobots everywhere have ME to thank for their friends dying, their bases falling, their confidence being shattered. How can I know that and think I don't deserve what Trailbreaker did? How can I know that and shoot off a charge? What kind of filth would I be to believe that was ok?"

"You know it was not all your fault though, don't you? You know what Megatron did, what he had created for the soul purpose of getting the information he needed to carry out the whole plan? I do not want to put you down by saying this, but you were only a pawn in his plan... Hunter was part of that same plan when they learnt about him. What you did not give Starscream willingly, they took from Hunters mind, and that was not your fault-"

"Oh, wasn't it? I should have killed him in the first place. I should have killed us both when he bonded with me. Primus only knows I wanted to... I should have tried harder, I didn't want to live. He was being driven by that stupid instinct of his and I KNEW he was better off dead than living with what he'd been made into... what we'd BOTH been made into..." Sunstreaker rolled off the berth and onto his pedes, flinching and ignoring his own pain as he paced stiffly, aggravated.  
Bob whined from under the berth where he'd settled. 

"I'm not even ME any more. The real me was destroyed! I'm a copy! A backup drive with a reconstructed spark from the tiny kernel that was left, the weak little pinprick Ratchet should have snuffed out... it would have been better for everyone, EVERYONE, if I had just died. If it had ended there."  
His vocaliser was hoarse, wavering as he tried to control it, and he grunted in pain, one knee buckling as he turned sharply away from Rung, who stood automatically when he fell to his knees.

Sunstreaker shrugged him off as his plating shook from the strain of trying to contain the sudden emotional torrent.  
It had snuck up on him and exploded in yet another disgusting display of the slagpit inside him. The black hole he wished would implode quietly and take him with it, so that no one saw, and no one noticed what a wretched creature he'd become in the end. So he'd have some dignity left.

Clearly he didn't deserve that either. Not when this little old mech could pop him open with minimal effort.

He took the fact that he was a wreck internally and now externally as yet another sign he should just cease existing.

He felt Rung's servo on his shoulder again, and again he shrugged it off. He never liked being touched, but now it was because he felt as If he were infectious... that the black inside of his mind and the filth of his deeds would rub off onto good mechs if they came into contact with him of their own volition for too long.  
And he'd done enough damage as it was.

Rung did not give up though, and Sunstreaker lost the will to fight when the psychiatrist moved to face him, kneeling in front of him, and wrapped his thin, flimsy arms around his shoulders.

He was being hugged. He didn't understand why, and his first thought was to push Rung away because mass murderers and traitors did not deserve such physical comforts... such outreaches... but he could not bring himself to do it.  
He just remained on his knees, stooped and shaking, and let Rung embrace him.


	4. Chapter 4

Sunstreaker was woken suddenly by an impromptu meeting with the floor. He flailed his way out of the murky fog of images that flashed through his mind, processor straining to break out of the memory purge and reconnect with reality.

A face swam in front of him, and before he could reign his reactions in, he swung at it.

First Aid reacted with impressive speed, pulling his face out of the line of fire and grasping the fist swung his way with a firm but gentle grip. "Sunstreaker, wake up! It's alright, you're just in the medbay."

The golden mech stilled and tensed, forcing his processor to switch back into the real world. He blinked up at the young medic, honing in on him as an anchor, optics taking a while to focus, engine still revving a little high.

First Aid let his fist go when he was sure the frontliner was back to himself but remained crouched by his side. "You've had a memory purge. It was rather serious, I couldn't wake you. How long has this been happening?"

The golden mech sat up slowly, refusing the servo offered and not meeting Aid's gaze. "A while."

The red and white mech gave a small huff, but he exuded patience and calm. "You should have come to me 'a while' ago then. We have stuff for that you know. I mean you can't overuse it or it stops being as effective, but considering how long I'm guessing you've been having problems recharging, I don't think Ratchet would disagree that you need them. Wait here, I'll be back in a klik."

Sunstreaker watched the medic leave, still a little dazed, and picked himself up stiffly, sitting back up on the berth in the ISO room that was his temporary home.

His dazed meta turned rather quickly towards seeking out Bob, only to remember Ratchet still wasn't allowing him in the medbay. The hollow feeling he got without his companion ate at his mind in a way he didn't like. He was more dependant on the little bug than he would admit to anyone... not that he needed to, it ended up being pretty obvious most of the time, but he didn't care. Bots could think whatever they wanted, he didn't give a frag. So long as he had Bob, he felt... he felt like he had some purpose left.

First Aid returned pretty quickly, holding a little box in his servo which he poked through. He came to a stop in front of Sunstreaker and pulled a data chip out of the box, holding it up. "This is a suppressant. This one isn't very strong, but it should help you get some restful recharge without memory purges when you're having a lot of trouble with them. You have to make sure you lie down before you put them in, any primary data port will do, but most mechs put it in their arm port since that's easiest. It'll knock you into recharge in about five nano's, so yeah, make sure you're comfy before you put it in. There's ten to a box, try not to become dependant on them. If they don't work I'll bump you up to the next strength."

Sunstreaker gave him a slightly dazed look, accepting the chip and box from him as he tried to absorb all that information.  
"Um... so... wait, have these been around for... how long HAVE these been around for?"

"The lost Light didn't have many when it took off but we cleaned out Delphi's supplies and brought them with us since the place is shut-down now, and we had plenty there." First Aid explained with a small shrug.

"So... I could have gotten these before?" his faceplate pulled into a slightly frustrated expression.  
"Well, no, actually the only reason I can give them to you now is because you've had more than one session with Rung, and he's marked an okay on your file for them so long as you continue seeing him. I assume you've already been put on a schedule with him?"

"Um... yeah, sort of, he's expecting to see me again, but he hasn't fixed a time, he wants me to set it." Sunstreaker's frustration was accented with scepticism and he gave Aid a suspicious look. "Do I not get to use them if I don't set it sometime soon?"

"Primus no, but you really don't want to become dependant on these, they can mess your recharge patterns up MORE than what they would be from memory relapse issues, that's why you need to take them in conjunction with therapy, so you can work on the root cause and eventually stop needing them. They aren't a permanent solution by any means. More of a stop gap."

Sunstreaker blinked, his frustration leaking away as the energy to upkeep it seemed to leak out of his tired mind. He simply nodded in response and looked down at the chip.  
"I didn't know they even made anything like this."

"Most bots don't, they're reserved for when purges are exceptionally problematic, mostly because if they aren't regulated they're abused, and more harm is done than good. But in a war this long? These have been around for quiiiite a while. PTSD was the most common ailment I treated at Delphi. Don't punch me for saying it, but I can see from a mile off that you have a rather severe case of it".

"Pff. I passed the PTSD stage a looong time ago. What I have is a severe case of remorse and 'what the slag do I do now-itis'." He murmured, turning the chip over in his servo.  
"What you have is severe internalisation. There are different kinds of post traumatic stress. You've had it before, which means you have ingrained coping mechanisms, but you're still not coping." First Aid said gently.

"Yeah, ok, who's the psychotherapist on this ship, Rung or You? I've got one bot inside my head, I don't need another." he rumbled warningly. Aid just shrugged. "I'm not going to make you talk about your feelings. I'm just going to tell you what to do to not feel so bad. Lie back, stick that chip in. You'll feel a lot better after a decent recharge, I'm guessing it'll be your first in a long time. Tomorrow we're fixing your valve so you'll be free of the pinching sensation."

The golden mech gave Aid a slightly calculating look and did what he was told. Just after he stuck the chip in his arm, and as the medic was walking out, he threw out a 'Thanks'.

By the time First Aid looked back at him, he'd gone into shut down. First Aid stayed standing there a moment, looking the frontliner over thoughtfully before he left, closing the door behind him to leave the golden mech in peace.

Sunstreaker had felt better than he'd ever expect to. It probably shouldn't of surprised him to find how much difference a proper recharge cycle made, but all the same he was slightly disorientated by not feeling like he was dragging his pedes.

Of course it wasn't just the suppressant chip that had gotten him a decent amount of rest. He'd woken up for about half a cycle before he was put back under for his operation. Ratchet had completed it within a cycle but left him under for three just to top up his recharge debt a little more.

He'd been released from the medbay under orders to return for a check-up the next day, and he was off the duties roster while his micro fractures healed. This was somewhat disappointing for him, since duty shifts kept him occupied, and now... now he was sort of at a loss for what to do with himself.

Bob had been staying with Chromedome and Rewind again, and after picking him up, Sunstreaker had gone back to his quarters and ended up pausing in his doorway.  
Something had changed in his room. Someone had been in there... and they'd left something rather sizeable.

He wandered over to it with a curiously clicking Bob on his heels. Against the far wall where he hadn't done any painting yet, was a berth. A proper one, facing so he would see out the window when he lay on it. There was a note on top, and he instantly recognised Rung's handwriting. 'You might want to keep punishing yourself, but your backplates will thank me for this, I'm many things, but not a chiropractor -Rung'.

He stared at the note for at least a full klik before he laughed and shook his helm, putting the note in subspace and laying on the thing to test it out. He had to admit to himself, it was a slagload more comfortable than his makeshift bench bed, and it had a replenishing module and everything. If he hadn't just topped up on sleep, he would have tried it out, but he sat up instead and patted the surface, inviting Bob to join him and scritching the insecticon behind his audials.

He ended up pulling out a datapad and doing some reading while Bob inched and shuffled his way closer, ending up sprawled over his lap and purring loudly as Sunstreaker petted him idly. He lost track of time, and was slightly startled when someone knocked at his door.

He made no secret of his chosen quarters, but he also didn't tell anyone where they were unless asked specifically, and since no one ever did ask him specifically, well...  
He preferred not to be bothered anyway. Mechs didn't like talking to him. It worked out well for everyone. He supposed it was either Rung at the door, or one of the Medics had found out from Rung where he was.

He frowned slightly as he hauled Bob off his lap and got up to go answer it. He hadn't missed his check-up had he? He was sure he hadn't been sitting there THAT long? A quick check of his chronometer proved him right on that count, so who-

When he opened the door, the last mech he expected to be standing there was Trailbreaker. His instant reaction was to tense up, his battle protocols onlining defensively.

"What do YOU want?"

The black bot backed up a step and fidgeted with his servos, looking extremely unsure of himself. Sunstreaker could see the shimmer of his forcefield and bristled further, trying to think about the last experience with it. Behind him he heard Bob scuttle over, the bot coming to heel and hissing warningly at the large bot in the hallway, who took yet another step back and held his hands up.

"I just... I came to... apologise."

"What makes you think I want to hear it?" Sunstreaker rumbled.

"I... look, I was... I mean, my inhibitor chip fritzed a long time ago. I was overcharged and stupid, and I didn't mean to-"

"To what? Rape a mech? Whoops, bit late for that. I don't want your apology. I don't need to hear your excuses, you do, so you can feel better." Sunstreaker said shortly, glaring daggers at the bot, expression hard.

Trailbreaker's mouth worked soundlessly as he floundered to find a response to that.

"Look, Sunstreaker, I'm sorry, OK? I am, really, I am... Rung... he... put things in perspective-"  
"Did he tell you to do this?" the golden mech cut across him sharply.

"No, no he didn't, I thought I should-"  
"Should what? Patch up our non-existent relationship and go back to the way it was? Not how it works. You beat the slag out of me. Congratulations, you've joined the ranks of some pretty prestigious bots in that. Double points for doing it while more tanked than I was. Now that you've absolved yourself, get the frag out of my face and don't talk to me."

Sunstreaker went to shut the door in his faceplate when he blurted out "I know what happened to you in the pits, OK? He told me..."

Trailbreaker regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Sunstreaker froze halfway through turning, optics burning on the black mech with cold disdain.

"Oh. Did he now. So you know you aren't the first. Good for you. Now you can rest easy in the knowledge I'm not as traumatised as I might otherwise have been. What exactly do you WANT, Trailbreaker? Are you looking for some kind of absolution here? You want me to forgive you? Want me to tell you it's OK because I've been through worse and we can just forget the whole thing? Is that why you're here?"

"NO! No, it's not about me... I just... I wanted you to know I'm sorry... what I did. And that I... I understand now, why I was wrong to do that... the things I said. I didn't mean them..." he trailed off weakly as the front liners optics bored into him.  
Sunstreaker's gaze narrowed and his mouth formed a bitter sneer.

"Oh yes you did. You meant every fragging word and don't pretend otherwise. Feeling guilty about it doesn't make you mean it any less. And don't you dare, don't you DARE tell me you understand. You understand NOTHING."

He stepped out into the corridor and loomed at the the other mech. Trailbreaker was bigger, but he backed up, all but quailing under the golden mech's nearly tangible anger.

His blue visor was fixed on the smouldering near-violet of the frontliner's optics.

"I am not going to absolve you of your guilt. You exploded my joints from the inside out. You wrecked my valve more thoroughly than any of the bots that forced themselves on me in the pits. You don't get to say sorry and feel better. You can take your apology and shove it and don't you dare, don't you DARE try to tell me you understand. You have no idea. _None."_

As quickly as he had pressed into Trailbreaker's personal space, he was gone, turning his back and retreating into his quarters, closing the door on him.

Trailbreaker was left pressed against the opposite wall of the corridor with a stunned, slightly fearful expression. It took him about two kliks to get enough of his wits back together to move, at which point he hurriedly vacated the corridor.

In his room, Sunstreaker stood against the window, helm and palms to the glass. He heaved cooling air through his frame and tried viciously to stop the shaking, but it overwhelmed his whole frame. He stared blankly out at the stars, not seeing them, his mind focussed inwards.

Unable to control the shaking, he sank to his knees and stayed there for an indeterminable amount of time, mind flitting between memories. The pits, the incident with Trailbreaker, making the deal with Starscream, Juda's bridge, Hunter bonding with him...

As fast as he tried to quash one memory, another would surface, images looping constantly through his mind. _Why did he have to come here. Why did he have to bring it up and ruin everything, I was fine. Why do I have to be such a mess, he could never understand, NEVER, no one could... No one knows, no one will ever know, no one wants to know, even if they think they do. Rung wants to help me but he doesn't get it either, I can't... I can't... too much has happened... too much..._

Bob shuffled over making a concerned whirring and chittering, nuzzling at his master's arm and wriggling his way into Sunstreakers lap.

The frontliner wasn't conscious of what he was doing, but he ended up curling over the insecticon, clutching him with still shaking servos, optics pale and unfocussed.

"I don't... I don't know what to do Bob... I don't know what to do anymore..."

Sunstreaker had only snapped out of his introversion episode when he'd gotten a ping from First Aid that he needed to go in for his check-up.

He pulled himself together and wandered down to the medbay, taking Bob with him and disregarding the rule to leave him outside. He couldn't do it. He needed him. Bob was the only thing keeping him calm enough to function. He didn't really take notice of the fact that Ratchet was in the medbay and had failed to yell at him for bringing the insecticon in. He wasn't aware of how obviously not-right he looked.

He tried to look as normal as possible as he sat on a berth and waited for First Aid to do his check and let him go again.

The junior medic threw his mentor a look on the way past and stood in front of Sunstreaker, gently beginning his examination. The golden mech complied soundlessly, optics never focussing on anything long, servos twitching now and then. Aid could hear his systems making suppressed stress noises, but did not comment on it.

"Everything seems to be healing up just fine. Systems aren't showing any signs of rejecting any of the metal grafts, and your welds have all set nicely. Still, don't do anything strenuous for about an orn."  
Sunstreaker just nodded deftly, not looking at the medic, but at Bob, who was peering up at him and had put a clawed servo on his knee. He petted the insecticon's helm, and the medic noted the stress sound in his engine reducing as he calmed.

"Sunstreaker?"

The frontliner couldn't really ignore the young medic when he was directly addressing him for his attention. He looked up, optics still paler than usual, and schooled his face into what he hoped was a neutral mask.

"Your rations have been changed, you have a separate allotment for Bob now, OK? And I think before you leave you should schedule your next appointment with Rung."

The golden mech couldn't help the pull at his mouth into a slight grimace. "Uh... fine. Whenever he thinks is the best time I guess."

"Usually he puts sessions once an orn, but I think he'd rather see you sooner than later. In three days sound alright?"

"Um... yeah, that's fine." he murmured, looking back down at Bob. "I can go now yeah?"

First Aid gave him a concerned look, sharing another look with Ratchet.

"We don't need you to stay for anything. Are you alright Sunstreaker?... You aren't in pain are you? The equipment fix isn't malfunctioning at all?"

Sunstreaker looked up briefly with an odd expression. "No? Why would it? Not like I've used it."

"Alright then. You sure you're alright? You seem a little out of sorts." Aid pressed gently.

"Fine. Just... yeah, I'm fine. Thanks Aid, I'll catch you later." Sunstreaker stood and ducked out of the medbay looking as if he was trying to avoid their gazes. The medics shared another look when he left and Ratchet's frown deepened.

"Something's happened. Slagger never lets on when he gets shaken up. Hold the fort Aid, I'm going to go talk to Red. And Rung, if he's free."

He knew he shouldn't have. Knew Ratchet would probably disapprove and chew him out and smack him over the helm, but he really didn't care. Sunstreaker was sat back in a corner of Swerve's bar, drinking himself into a stupor the night before his next session with Rung. He sat slouched, staring at the ceiling with unfocussed optics, lap filled with insecticon that he petted with uncoordinated servos whenever Bob squirmed and nuzzled him.

He wasn't sure if bots were actually staring and talking about him under their breath or if he was just extremely paranoid, but four cubes to the wind and he didn't give a slag.

He'd never expect to have a drinking problem, but he began to wonder if he was crossing the line between binge drinker and full on having an over-energizing problem. He thought maybe he was straddling the line. He didn't bother drinking his troubles away when he had other working avenues of suppression. Right now, he had few other means of breaking the downward spiral of his own thoughts.

All the same, he knew he couldn't afford to let it become a dependence. He had a lot of credits set aside, but he wasn't really keen on wasting them on badly brewed booze. He knew there were other means of distraction. He just had to remember what the slag they were, which was hard when he was this tanked.

He was surprised he'd even managed to keep such a coherent train of thought going for as long as he just had. He looked into his last cube and downed the rest, pulling a face. Tasted like slag, but it sure got the job done, a zing of tingly hot-cold sweeping his systems.  
"Mmmmmkaaaaaay. Thaaat's me f'r t'day. Boooob... tow-line time Bob, c'mon."

He managed to stagger out of the bar, but got stuck in the corridor crouching with his glossa between his teeth trying to attach the insecticon's lead. "Fffffffffragginslaggerpitspawnsonova-"  
"Hey Sunstreaker! Need any help?"

The golden mech turned surprised optics up at the pleasant greeting and felt less surprised when he discovered Drift grinning down at him.  
"Uuuuh yeah I guess. Bit too tanked f'r accuracy"

The white swordsmech crouched and clipped the lead on for him with one deft movement. "You headed home for the night then?"  
"Yuuuuup." Sunstreaker stood with a slight wobble, wondering if it would be polite to transform right now and then wondering why he even cared, wobbling slightly in his indecision.  
"Hey, I'll walk with you. I'm not really headed anywhere in particular." Drift chirped, extremely friendly. Even charged to the pit, Sunstreaker was no fool.

"Y'wanna guard me against another beating or y'wanna get me alone to have y'r turn?" He said wryly, Bob pulling at the lead to get him to move forward in the right direction.

"Neither. Just thought I might as well walk with you. We haven't really talked much. I wanted to see how you were getting on, y'know, repairs wise. It's a bit soon to be getting overcharged isn't it? Has Ratchet approved this?"  
Sunstreaker let out a loud noise like a turbo-charger valve blowing off. "Noooooo but s'not the first time I've followed repairs with a couple cubes 'f high-grade. I'll be fiiine. Hungover prob'ly but fine."

The white mech chuckled. "Alright then, if you say so."  
They walked in silence a little ways, Drift gently prodding Sunstreaker into a straight line when he veered into him as they walked.  
"Hey, Driiiift."

"Mmm?" He looked at the golden mech, who's expression seemed almost... nostalgic?

"D'you ever miss it? Fighting? You were good y'know, as 'Con. Better th'n good. You were kickin' my aft, me n' my garrison. You remember that?"

The swordsmech blinked, taken quite aback by the topic... and more importantly- "How do you know that was me?"

Sunstreaker snorted and gave him a look. "Y'mighta got upgrades n refurbishments, but th' styles th' same. Don't gemme wrong, y'not the same as y'were when you were Deadlock. And f'r what its worth m' glad you turned tail on the 'Cons, cuz if y'hadn't, y'da beat the slag outta us. Once you were gone, we turned the tide. Took back the planet. I... I miss that garrison. That fight. It w'z easier back then, knew where I stood, wondered if it was th'same for you. Do y'miss it?"

Drift became rather pensive at that, considering his answer carefully, even as he poked the golden mech deftly back on track again.  
"No. No, I don't think I do miss that. Not in the same sense as you do. I consider myself... enlightened. I was blind back then. The meaningless violence was not fulfilling, it was a... substitute, I suppose. But for what it's worth... you were a worthy opponent." he gave Sunstreaker a grin that harked back to his days as Deadlock, and the golden mech grinned predatorially right back at him.

"So... you seriously just recognised me from my frame 'style'? Or are you having me on?"

the white mech peered at him dubiously.  
"Damn straight I'm serious. Lotta bots don't pay attention t'frames. Me, I'm an artist, I notice that stuff. I knew who y'were not long after I met you as y'are now. Found out a couple little things 'n put the pieces t'gether."  
"That's right... I remember Rodimus mentioning you're an artist. What do you do?"

"Paint stuff. Walls, frames, canvases, anything really." he shrugged, pulling a face as his tank made a slight gurgly noise. "Uuugh. Dunno what Swerve made that last batch outta but it's not processing so great." 

"Mmm. If you're going to purge, turn your head right to do it, OK?" Drift snickered "Guess there's a reason Ratchet says no drinking after repairs."

"Yeah but it's not t'do with processing problems, that's cuz y'need proper fuel to help repairs. Overcharging slows th' repair nanites." Sunstreaker clarified, leaning against the wall as Bob stopped outside their room. 

Drift gave the door a slightly surprised look. "Isn't this the rear observation deck?"

"Yeeeep. Had a spark-eater victim left innit. I did the clean-up, I get the room. S'nice n dark n stuff."  
"Ah, I see. Fair enough, but perhaps I should come in and cleanse it of negative energy some time?"

Sunstreaker had a small giggling fit at that, Bob giving his master a confused look, Drift doing much the same.  
"Mech, no dead body is gonna match the negative energy I put out, trust me. You wanna try cleansing me sometime y'gonna have y'work cut out for you." He petted Drift's shoulder and fumbled his door code into the pad.

Drift gave the frontliner a slightly sad look behind his back. "Would if I could mech. I'll catch you later, okay?"

"Yeeeeeeeeap." Sunstreaker waved vaguely back with an arm before the door closed behind him.

The world was an unkind mess of colour and sound and images, swimming across his mind. Time had been lost to him again, he had no way of tracking it somehow. He couldn't process through the fog of alerts on his HUD and pain in his frame.

The last thing he remembered was dropping on his berth and fumbling the recharge line to attach to his side.

Now he was somewhere in his room, and all he knew was the optics staring at him from the opposite side of the room. The floor was constantly moving and rumbling too loudly, his backplates were against something icy and he couldn't claw his way somewhere safe. His frame didn't want to respond, actuators misfiring, tension cables failing, alerts flashing, and those optics staring and glaring and judging as fire swept through his sensory grid.

The ping of his comm was a distant echo in his head that felt like something trying to make his audios explode. He had been aware of more sound earlier, it had been him, he thought, but his voice didn't seem to want to respond anymore either.

Whirl trudged down the corridors. Stupid errands. Why did he have to like that damn therapist so much. And why was HE the errand bot. He was, what, fourth in the chain of command? Well, no, REALLY he was equal to Drift, even though he took orders from Magnus. Equal third then. Maybe not officially, but Rodimus would probably ask his advice more if they hung out more, that was just coincidental. Well, that and he wasn't fragging Rodimus. Yeah he liked him but Drift could keep THAT.

So anyway, why the slag he was running around after bots that couldn't even make it to appointments on time he didn't know. But whatever, Rung wanted to know where shiny-aft was, then Whirl would go drag his aft to his session. Another question entirely was why the slag mister special yellow snowflake had to have a room away from the hab suites. If he was trying to get on bots good sides, then alienating himself wasn't really going to help much, now was it.

He found the right door (He thought) and smacked a pincered servo against it.

"Oi STREAKFACE! Up you get! The head doc wants to see you! I mean, not the head DOCTOR, the HEAD doctor, y'know? Eyebrows! You're not skipping out on a session THAT easy y'know. I tried once, trust me, easier to just go along with it."

He waited a few moments, listening, but got nothing back. "OKAAAAY you've forced my claw, I'm coming i~iiiiiin".

He tried the keypad, making a noise of boredom when he couldn't hack it and just punching his pincers into it and twisting. The thing sparked and the door hissed open on emergency reaction. The spiky 'copter wandered in and looked about. "Wow, nice mood lighting. Very emo. Adds to the whole 'no one likes me' chique you got going. Very in fashion these days for traitors, now where are you- Oh, OK, sleeping against the window. That's a new one."

He trudged over and tilted his helm at the bulky thing curled up against the frontliner, which popped it's helm up and hissed at him, flaring spiky plating.  
"Aaaand the pet adds a nice touch, but you're not fooling me. C'mon you lazy aft, get up." Whirl crossed his arms and waited, but Sunstreaker didn't move.

Well, no, that wasn't true, he was shaking.

"Ooooh ok, yeah, I see, the old 'chuck a sickie to get out of it' thing. Like I haven't pulled that. C'mon you pathetic waste of fabulous paint."

He kicked the golden mech in the chestplates somewhat viciously, and squawked when Bob lashed out. He jumped back a step or two, the insecticon hissing louder. Sunstreaker didn't respond.  
"Ooookie dokie... either you're a better actor than me, or you're not faking."  
He looked around, noticing a pool of purged energon. Then he turned further and noticed the wall covered in paintings.

"Weeeeell I'll be damned. There's something you don't see every day." He murmured, tilting his helm and studying the work, taking a few image caps before turning back to the golden mech and slouching. "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. Well this is just great. FINE. I'll carry you to medbay. No, no need to thank me, I'm just doing this out of the goodness of my spark because I'm such a kind and caring individua- ACK, stupid pet I'M HELPING HIM NOW OK? SIT... STAY... wow, that actually worked..." 

Bob sat and stayed, buzzing angrily at him as he hauled the dead weight of the over-warm mech over his shoulder and plodded out of the room.

Bob whined as his master was taken away, following when Whirl walked out, still muttering. He kept at a distance, apprehensive of the big blue spiky mech.

"HEY DOC, Special delivery. Guess what I got. It's emo, it's yellow, and it's vibrating slightly." Whirl unceremoniously dumped the frontliner on the nearest berth, Ratchet poking his helm out of his office. "Whirl I have NOT got time for your- Primus, what's happened to him NOW? What did you do to him?"

The CMO bustled out and dragged Sunstreaker into a better position on the berth, checking his vitals and revving anxiously. "He was crumpled up against the window in his room, I didn't do anything! Rung asked me to go find him when he missed his appointment and he couldn't get him on comms. If you ask me, I think he's tried to do himself i-"  
"I DIDN'T ask you. Thankyou for bringing him, now please get out of my bay and tell Rung he's here."

Whirl threw his servos into the air and turned to leave. "You TRY to do something nice, you get treated like a crook, that's life for ya. You're lucky I'm such a nice guy, or I'd tell you to shove it and tell him yourself. But I understand news like this has to be delivered with that personal touch."

Ratchet growled at the mech as he left, hooking Sunstreaker up to several machines, swearing as he found the substance in his lines causing the catatonic reaction.

He went about hooking up a line flush, for all the good it would do now with the acidic compound running through every system in his body.

He was sure at least of one thing given the acid was a long lasting, slow working, non-lethal variety. Sunstreaker had not been attempting suicide, or at least if he had, he'd gone about it in a really dumb way. Even newsparks knew this particular slow-stripping agent would cause long lasting pain without actually killing you. It was best known these days as a tool of interrogative torture.

So the question then, if Sunstreaker had not ingested it himself (And he knew the golden mech neglected himself out of guilt, but would not have thought him likely to take to the course of hardcore self harm), how then had it gotten in him?

And more importantly, had he been deliberately poisoned with it?

The very thought of someone in the crew inflicting this deliberately made him sick to his tanks.

Ratchet made a slightly startled noise as something bumped his leg. Looking down, he grunted at the Insecticon looking up at him with round, anxious optics.  
"Ugh. FINE. You can stay. How you even got in here I don't think I wanna know. But you're gonna need a sterilising bath."

/Aid, I need you to put that inventory on hold and come deal with a little pest problem. Sunstreaker's just been dragged in here unconscious by Whirl, and his pet's followed him. Sunny's out of it, I need you to sterilise the bug so I don't have to kick the pathetic thing out/.

The red and white CMO in training appeared before Ratchet had even finished his comm. He trotted over with an anxious look on his masked and visored features. "How the slag did he get poisoned?"

Ratchet shrugged. "No idea. Whirl was sent to fetch him when he didn't appear for his next appointment with Rung apparently. Found him in his room like this."

The younger medic touched the golden mech's helm lightly, turning it slightly left and right. "he's awfully over-heated. Do we know how long the substance has been in his system?"

Ratchet gave a long, weary sigh. "No idea, but I'd wager it was the last time he fuelled, which was last night when he got himself tanked at Swerve's. Best guess is someone slipped something in one of his drinks when he was already too overcharged to notice it. A-430 has a pretty unmistakeable taste, he'dve been hitting the strong stuff not to notice it."

First Aid winced at the mention of that particular acid. "Really? _Really? _Someone thought THAT stuff was necessary? That's... I don't understand, why do they think cruelty of that level is warranted?" he huffed angrily.

The older mech gave him a slightly surprised look. It took a lot to get first Aid riled up. He'd seen much crueller work at the servos of his old boss (he flexed said servos instinctively, hoping, not for the first time, that he could repay the karmic debt his servos owed), and yet he'd not riled so easily at that.  
Ratchet pursed his lips slightly and shook his helm. "He messed up pretty slaggin' bad, but no, he doesn't deserve this. Not after paying his dues like he has. When we find the mech responsible, he's gonna wish he'd never signed onto the same ship as me, I tell you that much."

Aid hummed at that in a non-committal fashion. "Whoever they are, they're lucky I'm a pacifist, or I would- Oh... hello Bob." the insecticon, finding no attention from Ratchet, had head butted the younger medic's shins lightly. He looked up at Aid with four wide, pathetic optics and made a whining sort of whirr.  
First Aid knelt and scritched him lightly, the mopey bug shuffling closer and putting his helm on his knee.  
"Since you've obviously got a good rapport with him, clean him up will you? I'm loath to keep him away from Sunny since he does him such good, but I won't have him trudging contaminants all over the bay."

"Yessir. C'mon Bob. Your master will be OK. Let's get you cleaned up and we'll see if we can find you something to make you feel better too, hmm?" Aid stood and wiggled his fingers to try and coax Bob to follow him into the scrub room.

The insecticon followed him with a mournful sort of warble.


	5. Chapter 5

For the second time, Sunstreaker awoke suddenly in medbay to find First Aid hovering over him.

This time though, it was not memory purges waking him. Actually, he didn't know what brought him out of stasis, but as soon as he was conscious he wanted not to be again.

Pain permeated every inch of his frame, burning so badly it made him gasp through his vents.

"I'm sorry Sunstreaker, I won't keep you awake long. You have to be online for me to check your processors to make sure there's no acid damage in there. Firstly, you can still understand me, yes? Just nod, don't try to speak, the acid's degraded your vocaliser components too badly."

The front-liner clenched his jaw and nodded briefly. He could understand, but that didn't mean his head wasn't swimming, making it hard to focus or get his bearings. He tried his comms, finding to his relief that they worked. /What happened? How did I get here? What's wrong with me?/

First Aid gave him a sympathetic look as he drew a diagnostic uplink cable from his arm and gently opened a port on the back of Sunstreaker's helm. "You've been poisoned with Acid. It's not fatal, but it will leave you in a lot of pain until Perceptor can synthesise the neutralising agent. We'll keep you in stasis as much as possible, but it may take anywhere between two and four days before we can eliminate the substance from your frame completely. It's a sticky acid, and it had time to work its way through most of your systems. Now, I'm just going to do some basic processor checks OK? Don't mind me, it won't take long."

Sunstreaker's optics flickered as he tried to heave air through his frame. It felt like he was being burnt alive in a vat of corrosive lava or something. His fans sputtered, and frame shook slightly.

It was too much like...

No, he couldn't think about that. It wasn't the same, there were no humans here, he still had a body... but the presence of another in his head, the all-pervading agony clouding every line of thought and slowing his mind. It was too similar. He tried to move but found his motor-functions offline. Looking down at himself a wave of sick fear passed through his spark to find lines and wires coming out of everywhere.

"Your processors have remained protected against the acid, same with your t-cog and spark thankfully, but the casing's been exposed on the outside. We've pumped you full of repair nanites to keep everything from corroding too badly, and you're on a line flush. We had to set up an energon feed right into your spark-chamber so none of the tainted energon slips in there. Your motor-controls are offline temporarily so you don't accidentally unseat anything, but it's going to be ok."

First Aid could feel the frantic activity through Sunstreaker's processor. He could almost feel the panic. Looking into the front-liner's optics it became clear he was not handling the situation well at all. The young medic took Sunstreaker's face in his servos to get him to look at him.

"Hey, it's OK. You'll be fine, I promise. You're safe here. We'll fix you up. Bob's here too, he's sleeping under the berth, he'll be taken good care of."

Sunstreaker's engine gave an abortive sort of whine. /Make it stop. It hurts, please, make it stop/ he didn't care how pathetic he sounded, how unreasonably afraid. The need to be distanced from his situation, from himself, from reality, from the agony... that was all that mattered to him in that moment.

Aid rumbled in sympathy. "It's ok, we're done for now. I'll let you sleep again."

He pulled a suppressor chip from a subspace pocket on his forearm and gently disconnected his diagnostic line before sliding the chip into a slot beside the uplink port.

In seconds, the golden mech was unconscious again, and First Aid let out a slow ventilation.

He probably should have expected a panic attack like that. He wished he hadn't needed to wake him in the first place. He'd meant to ask him if he had any idea who had poisoned him, or when, but the effects of the acid were clearly far too strong to try waking him again any time soon.

The young medic checked all the machines and lines were still properly seated and working as they should before leaving the ISO room they'd set Sunstreaker up in.

"How is he?"

Aid turned, spotting Rung sitting outside the ISO. He'd missed him on the way out, normally he heard a bot's systems before he saw them, and could even identify them on the sound alone, but Rung had a rather quiet frame,

"Not particularly well." He sighed. "I've put him in extended stasis on a higher strength data purge suppressant than the ones I gave him earlier. The longer he's offline, the better. He'll have worse disorientation, but compared to what he'd experience awake, it's the best we can do for him."

Rung nodded, servo resting on his leg tapping at his thigh thoughtfully. "I don't suppose even if he knew who did this he would have told you."

"Haven't got a clue. I mean, Ratchet's already gotten up in Swerve's face, he didn't do it though. He admits to taking digs at Sunny, but he's just not a vindictive enough bot to do this kind of thing. I think his next guess was Trailbreaker but it turns out he was on waste sluicing duty on the hull when the poisoning supposedly took place, so it's unlikely to have been him. Oh... Ratchet told you about Trailbreaker going to Sunny's quarters to apologise to him didn't he?"

Rung looked up at the medic, eyebrows knitted together slightly. "No? When was that exactly?"

"About four days ago. When he came in for his post surgery check-up he was really out of sorts. Didn't say anything, but Ratchet went off to investigate. He got tapes off Red of the corridor outside Sunstreaker's room. Apparently Trailbreaker tried to apologise, but Sunstreaker had none of it, and then he shut the door in his face and didn't come out of his room until it was time for his check-up. Actually... I suppose really you should have a copy, I'll get Ratchet to send it to you when he gets back. He's off talking to Magnus. Well... I say talking. More like admonishing."

"Ah. About the rations I take it?" Rung laced his servos together in his lap.  
First Aid nodded. "I think he 's also going to try and make him investigate this properly and have him make Rodimus take crew health and well being policies more seriously."

"I think perhaps the best way to do that is not to have Magnus talk to him, but bring him here." the peach coloured mech suggested. Aid tilted his helm at that. "Here? Why?"

"He responds better to a problem when faced directly with the consequences of it. Show him Sunstreaker. Those two have a little history, Rodimus considers Sunstreaker a friend of sorts, the message will hit home harder if he sees first hand what the lack of policy enforcement has been leading to."

"Ah, I see. Well, I doubt Sunny will mind considering he's in stasis for at least another ten cycles. So, no ideas on who you think actually DID this?"

Rung considered very carefully before answering. "There are a fair few mechs on board who are still bitter towards him. Most have no history of doing anything drastic in terms of pranks or in-fighting, or anything this serious really. I would say Whirl if I didn't know he has less animosity towards Sunstreaker than most of them, despite his propensity for extremely dangerous retaliation attacks."

"I'm thinking Brainstorm, One of the minis, or Smokescreen." Ambulon piped up as he wandered past with a box of parts to sort.

"Oh? What makes you say them?" Rung asked curiously.

Ambulon pulled a long suffering sort of face, dumping his box on the nearest berth. "Bot like me, most mechs don't pay me any mind. They talk away like I'm not there, I hear a lot of things they probably don't want me to in Swerve's. Brainstorm often complains about all the things he was doing at Kimia before 'the Traitor' got the place wrecked and he lost almost all of his work. The minis and Powerglide often have slagging sessions where they curse him out. Smokescreen whines a lot about the period of time they were stuck on Cybertron running from insecticons, I can only imagine he is not pleased with the mech who openly admits to causing that."

Rung and First Aid shared a look. "I guess we better go to Ratchet and Magnus with this information." the CMO in training murmured.

"I'll go. After I tell them, I'll find Rodimus and bring him back here, assuming Ratchet hasn't already tracked him down for a verbal assault." the orange bot said wryly.

"Don't you give me that Magnus. What else did you think was going to happen? You allow the Insecticon on, expecting Sunstreaker to keep him from chewing on anything, and you only allot one ration for the BOTH of them-"  
"The ration allotments were under Red Alert's control." The large mech rumbled evenly, grimace never changing.

"You oversee EVERYTHING Red does, don't you dare try to tell me you didn't see this. Not never-miss-a-micron-out-of-place Magnus. You saw it and you chose to do NOTHING about it. Did you expect to catch him letting Bob chew on the engine block? You wanted to have an excuse to boot him, was that it? Or did you know he'd be giving his energon to the bug at the detriment of his own health and just not care? Let him punish himself for the misdemeanours you mentally assign to him?"

"He has credits of his own. There is a commissary, it is only fair he purchase the extra energon to keep his pet on board, the allowance of the Insecticon was only because Rodimus insisted." Ultra Magnus rumbled, face impassive, but optics telling just how ruffled the medic was getting him.

"Well isn't that a convenient excuse. You expected him, from the start, to buy energon from a bar that didn't yet exist, and which doesn't even serve anything weaker than spiced oil. Nice try, but I don't buy it. Don't bother making your excuses to me Magnus, I'm taking this to Rodimus. I just wanted you to know you're not above scrutiny here, enforcer of the tyrest accord or not, I expected better from YOU of all mechs."

"He sold his entire faction out, Ratchet. You are aware that you are defending a traitor that is lucky to of held onto his insignia, are you not?"

"You are aware that you're defending unprovoked torture, aren't you Ultra Magnus?" Rung stood at the door, which Ratchet hadn't closed when he'd stormed in.

Neither of them had noticed the small gaggle of bots that had gathered outside to listen, all of whom bar Rewind having scurried off when Rung arrived. As ever, the archivist was doing his job.

Ultra Magnus turned his impassive glare on the orange mech, Ratchet giving the psychotherapist an approving sort of look for his comment.

"Torture? I hardly think-"

"Sticky acid. Permeated through his systems, non-fatal, commonly used as a method of interrogative torture. And you're refusing to investigate it's use." Ratchet growled.

"I never refused to investigate. I commented that it would have to take a back-bench to my current duties. Contrary to popular belief, my time is NOT spent rearranging every item on my desk to within a micron of a perfect geometry of ninths."

"Of course not, everyone knows you do it in a ratio of fours." Ratchet drawled, scowl deepening as he crossed his arms. "Your other duties can take a back-bench to THIS, we need to know who decided they were going to take Autobot law into their own servos, and that's your primary function, so damn well do it, or I'll reformat you into an oil waste processor."

Magnus stared back at the CMO with equal measures of stubbornness. "Are you threatening me?"  
"Ooooh I could do much better if I was going to threaten you. I'm just stating facts." Ratchet countered acidly.

Rung could almost SEE the tension between them it was so thick. His diffusive nature reared up instinctively. "I came because First Aid, Ambulon and I think we may have some suspects."

Ultra Magnus turned and opened his mouth to dismiss that, but a look from Ratchet made him swallow anything he'd planned to say.

Once Rung was sure the silent exchange was complete between the two officers, he continued.  
"Our main suspects, according to Ambulon, are Brainstorm, Smokescreen, and the minibot clique. Apparently Brainstorm has a grudge about losing his work at Kimia, Smokescreen is still angry about the time spent avoiding the swarm, and the minis have regular complaint sessions with Powerglide about 'the Traitor'." Rung explained calmly.

"I will take all of that into consideration. Typically with an investigation however, I will review evidence at the scene or scenes of the transgression, before seeking suspects based on the data I find."  
"Get to it then. You've got all the authority you need to get into Swerve's bar and Sunstreaker's room." Ratchet put his servos on his hips and stared at Magnus expectantly until, scowling worse than usual, he walked out of his office and headed off to begin his investigation.

Rodimus stood beside Rung in the medbay, scowling. Stupid shenanigans and pranks he could forgive. It was just the usual, friendly exchange of mild irritation, a bonding exercise between crew members. He let a lot of it slide, and when he couldn't, he doled out vanilla sorts of punishments. There'd been a few more serious transgressions, sure. He'd dealt with it accordingly.

But this? This was WAY out of line. And what made him angriest about it was the fact he had no one to punish yet. No one to take out his frustration on... the anger he felt directed fully towards himself for FAILING yet another mech under his care. This WASN'T supposed to keep happening.

It wasn't the first time he'd seen Sunstreaker lying prone on a medberth with cables coming out of everywhere. Last time had been on earth. Last time he'd found the mech and led him back to base, it had been a successful mission to find him. Last time hadn't been his fault.

A part of him wondered why the golden mech was such a slag magnet. Sure, he'd had a lot in common with the front-liner once upon a time, even though some of it he didn't care to admit. They were both damn good fighters and knew it. They both had stunning features and knew it. They both had leadership qualities.

But after earth, something had changed in Sunstreaker, and their similarities had stopped. Not a lot of bots had the insight that Rodimus did. They hadn't seen what the humans had done to him, hadn't had him grasping at them, half out of his mind and begging for help, mind scrambled by the incursion of an organic presence where it shouldn't be.

They also hadn't heard him screaming to get them out.

They hadn't heard him begging for death.

Rodimus hadn't told anyone but Ratchet about the night he'd found and brought Sunstreaker back after the headmaster incident. Sunstreaker's memory had been so scrambled that he hadn't remembered most of what happened that night either, and Rodimus had enough respect for him to have never spoken a word to anybot else.

He hadn't been happy with the betrayal any more than the rest of the Autobots. When word spread about who it was, Rodimus had dug a little deeper (Because at the time, he hadn't believed it, but it had become a lot clearer once he found out what Starscream had been promising Sunstreaker).

When he knew why Sunstreaker had done it, he'd found it a lot easier to forgive than he'd expected.

And for all any of them had known, Sunstreaker was dead by the time he'd found out anyway. Rodimus had history with the golden bot. He knew what the mech had been through, he forgave him his shortcomings because he knew he was a changed bot, and he saw enough of himself in him still to want to give him a second chance. He'd been through enough hell. The pits before the war, the human fiasco, the living nightmare after Juda's bridge. And now someone thought it was a great idea to fill him full of sticky acid.

No. This was going to stop. He commanded this vessel. No one under his command was going to be made to suffer like this. He wasn't going to let mechs go around thinking he was a pushover and that they could get away with this behaviour. They wouldn't do it under Optimus Prime's command, they sure as frag weren't going to get away with it under his.

"He still has nightmares, doesn't he?" the red and orange mech asked quietly, still staring at the golden mech's stressed looking faceplates. Rung looked up at him ponderously for a few moments.

"He does. When did you become aware of them?"

"We bunked in the same place when wheelie and I ran into him and Ironhide on Cybertron. A while before the whole Chaos event. He was still in a chair at that point. But yeah... we bunked in the same room. He never had a sound recharge. Don't blame him. Kinda hoped he was getting better since the Matrix fixed him up, but I guess memories don't fix that easy huh?"

"No. Unfortunately, they do not." Rung sighed, laying a servo gently over the front-liners brow, smoothing the plating where his orbital ridges were pressed close together. Sometimes, even when unconscious, a cybertronian's body reacted to the sensations running through it, whether higher processors were aware of them or not.

"Does he still not remember me finding him after the headmaster thing? Ratchet mentioned he might recover those memories, but he couldn't be sure. It was kind of a mess with a human making up most of his neuro-circuitry apparently."

Oh yes, and then there was said human. Rodimus had made the mistake of mentioning him only once. He'd never seen Sunstreaker look the way he did when he heard that name, and he never wanted to again.

This time, Rung gave the captain a more scrutinising look. "He has never mentioned it to me if he does. I suspect he does not... he is still under the impression he made his own way to the base after escaping the humans. I didn't know that wasn't the case?"

"Well, to be fair he got fairly damn far on his own. He was pretty messed up when I found him. Not surprised you don't know about it, Ratchet's the only mech I ever told about it in detail. I don't... it makes me kinda uncomfortable, talking about it. I prefer just copying and transferring the memories directly."

Rung pursed his lip-plates slightly before nodding. "If you would really prefer to do that, then we can do that. I admit, the fact you feel the need to use a direct transfer makes me apprehensive about the memory in question."  
"Oh, it's not like it was the worst experience of my life or anything, it's just... it's too hard to put into words what he was like, it's easier just to show you." Rodimus replied with a heavy sigh through his vents.

"Ah, I see. Well, that can wait until later. I do hope this has brought to your attention just how serious the breech of conduct is on this ship at present." Rung stated delicately, affixing a rather stern gaze on the captain. Rodimus' optics flicked to his and held that gaze with one of humility before he looked back at Sunstreaker, jaw clenching. "It won't happen again. I'll make sure of it. Not letting bots think they can pull this slag under my command."

Sunstreaker came around slowly, vocaliser hissing static. He was trying to call someone, anyone. He was trapped and he couldn't move and he didn't know WHY. He was panicking again. It was the humans, he knew it, he knew if he didn't destroy them it would happen all over again. That's all he wanted, to be sure they couldn't do it again. He never meant to hurt anyone, never meant to hand the decepticons the war, never meant for so many Autobot lives to be lost.

A cool servo on his forehead made him stop trying to call out. His optics powered up slowly, afraid of what they'd see. But no... there was no humans. He'd been stuck in a nightmare. Memories flicked back on like dingy lightbulbs in his mind, everything slow through a malaise of ache and static fuzz.

It was First Aid... that was right, First Aid had woken him up before. It had been a lot worse before. Now it was bad, but it was... tolerable, if he tried not to pay attention to the burning.

"We've got you hooked up to the basing solution now Sunstreaker. Perceptor finished synthesising it, we need to keep you conscious now to make sure it's working properly. Are you feeling alright?"  
The young medic shone a scanning light into each of his optics as he spoke, noting contraction and brightness. Sunstreaker didn't answer, but leant into the cool servo that had slid around to hold the side of his helm.

"Your comms still work, your vocaliser isn't repaired yet though. We still have your frame locked down as well, so don't be alarmed that you can't move."

The front-liner just grit his jaw and leant his helm further into the medic's servo, seeking the cool metal as he fought to pay attention to what was being said to him. His body was very distracting, the burning less tolerable the longer he was subjected to it.

What made it even more uncomfortable was the cold sensation prickling through him from where basing agent was being fed into his lines. /How long do I have to be like this?/

"A few cycles. The pain should lessen, but the acid got in very deep. We may need to move you into a soak to get all of it. Right now the most important thing is to stop it from eating at your internals. Your energon tank is toast, we can't replace it until all the acid is gone." He moved his servo to smooth Sunstreaker's brow again, which is what it seemed the mech was trying to get. The metal under it was a little over-warm, but not to a concerning degree.

Sunstreaker off lined his optics and shuddered slightly at the conflicting signals in his frame. He'd felt much worse than this before, but it was always an experience he dreaded. More-so since he'd been through his earth incarceration and the time at the bottom of Juda's pass. Suffering was bad enough without horrific memories and fear being stirred by it. His thoughts turned to the bots who continued to want to cause him that suffering, over and over. On one level... he felt he probably deserved it. On another, he wanted to escape it. He was tired of it. He didn't ever want to have to feel it again. Did he have the right to that yet? Had he suffered enough? No judge had set his penance time, but maybe not knowing was all part of the ultimate punishment?

/Aid... how much energon would a bot need to get back to Cybertron d'you think?/

The medic gave him a slightly confused look. "Um... I'm not sure, I'd have to work it out. I don't even know exactly where we are at the moment. Why?"  
/Because I fancy my chances in the Cybertronian wilderness better than on this ship right now/. He pulled a face as he spoke, pain flaring slightly before a wash of solvent through his lines eased it back again.

Aid absently pet Sunstreaker's forehead as he frowned under his mask. "But... you were planet-side after that chaos incident thing weren't you?"

/Yes. I was planet-side DURING it too/.

"So... I mean I only read it in reports about the wilderness driving bots crazy after the planet-wide reformat. Surely you know about that?"

/Yes/.

Aid grimaced beneath his mask and paused in his petting. "Sunstreaker, if you are suicidal, I'll have to get Rung in here to talk to you while your motor functions are still offline. I know you don't really like the idea of forced sessions but-"

/I'm not suicidal. I mean... Well, it's not that. I just fancy my chances better in the crazed wilds than I do on this ship right now/.

He onlined his optics dimly, not looking at the medic, and not physically begging more pets from him, though he desperately wanted to. When Aid moved his servo under a helm fin and gently tilted his jaw so that the front-liner would look at him, he noted that behind the visor, the bot seemed genuinely concerned for him.

"The worst part about you saying that... is the fact I agree with you." he sighed softly. A thumb absently rubbed along the edge of Sunstreaker's helm fin and the front-liner's optics dimmed a little more. He focussed on the point of pleasure to combat the overall discomfort of pain. A very old technique he'd found worked well in the pits. First Aid didn't seem to realise he was even doing it.

"I wish I could say we'll put a stop to this nonsense. No matter what you did, you don't deserve this. No bot deserves this. I kinda feel like... like finding the bots who did it and punching them square in the jaw. And I'm a pacifist! But honestly, you're not up for judgement in the people's court here. Magnus should be putting a stop to this. And besides... they keep ruining my work." he mumbled the last part in what seemed a nervous attempt at humour.

A genuine smirk pulled at Sunstreaker's mouth, and his optics brightened. /If you do find them and punch them and end up scratching your servos, I'll be happy to repaint them for you/.

Sunstreaker was fairly sure that the increase in helm-fin rubs after that statement was not accidental.

"I am telling you Ratchet, I have no evidence. There is no footage, no witnesses have come forward after the general request was sent out, and I cannot force a confession out of any of the suspects. Either the perpetrator is not any one of them, or the rest of the crew is behind them in their misdemeanour." Magnus scowled lightly. It was a neutral expression for him. Rodimus, sitting at his desk and scribbling idly with a laser scalpel, wore the same expression, but it was not so standard for him.

Ratchet stood opposite Magnus, bristling and glowering, and any bot could believe he was the same size as Magnus when he did that, despite only coming up to his chest.

"You had better have a way to assure me you did your best Magnus _sir, _because with the reluctance you showed to even take up the case in the first place-"

"No, Ratchet. He really has done about all he can. I made sure he followed through with his usual thoroughness. We really can't seem to get it out of anyone. They're either too scared to come forward, or they've closed ranks on the perps." Rodimus interjected with a frustrated sigh, tapping the scalpel against the desk, staring moodily at his scribble. It was supposed to be Bob, but it wasn't very good.

"Perps?" Ratchet frowned. "Perpetrators." Ultra Magnus clarified with the air of someone thoroughly disapproving of whole words being cut down for the sake of sounding 'cool'. Especially legal terms. The medic gave an angry growl from his engine and huffed.

"There's NOTHING you can do? So what am I supposed to do, Keep Sunstreaker permanently confined to the medbay to prevent any more attacks? I can only guess how well he'll take that."

"Pretty well if Aid keeps treating him I reckon." Rodimus muttered.

Ratchet cocked an orbital ridge at that. "Know something I don't captain?"

The red and gold mech looked up with something between surprise and wariness. "Oh... wait, you never saw when he was tending to Springer did you?... Your uhh... CMO in waiting has a habit of fussing over bots he likes a little more than regular patients. You hadn't noticed?"

"Not really. There's not much to do in the medbay most days he's only got so many conscious patients to fuss over, and he DOES need to monitor Sunstreaker carefully to make sure the acid didn't get anywhere that it could cause serious injuries. Not like we can just ASK Sunstreaker where it hurts most, for him it just hurts everywhere." he grumbled with a scowl, directing a pointed glare at Magnus, who's expression did not change.

"Yeah, well, it's not just the fussing, it's the LOOK. His visor gets that... glazed, polished look. He's got it bad for Sunny." Rodimus gave the smallest smirk.

"Well, as fascinating as all that information is, it doesn't really help us find out who-"

Ratchet was interrupted by a knock on the door. All three of them turned when it opened to stare at Cyclonus. The purple jet wore his usual neutral broody glare. Magnus squared up and made himself look as authoritarian as ever.

"We are in the middle of something. Whatever it is Cyclonus, make it qui-"

"I know who poisoned Sunstreaker." He drawled.

The three stared at him as though he had just grown another head.

After a brief silence, the purple mech tilted his helm slightly. "I believe you wanted me to be quick, so I will not wait for you to answer in that case. It was Smokescreen, but he did not act alone. He lost a bet to the minibots, and Brainstorm provided him with the chemicals he needed unknowingly."

"And how do YOU know this? More importantly, why did you not come forward with the information when I was enquiring of the entire crew?" Magnus rumbled, annoyed.

"This information does not come from me. I was not present for the planning or the execution, but Tailgate was. He was too afraid to come forward himself, and I quote, 'If I tell Magnus he will crush me in his giant fists, and the others will find out and poison me too.'"

"Well. Nice to see how encouraged the crew feel about coming forward with any concerns to you Magnus." Ratchet gave the larger bot a pointed glare, which again Magnus ignored with all the grace of a brick wall.  
"So is there more to it than that? Did Tailgate tell you more? Why they did it? How they planned it? How they got the poison into him without Swerve seeing?" Rodimus asked, frowning at the other two and concentrating on the purple flier.

"Yes, actually. He tends not to spare ANY details when he decides to tell me things... whether I want him to or not." Cyclonus murmured with a long-suffering look. "Apparently, Smokescreen got rather drunk with Brawn, Huffer and Gears, and they decided to 'prank' Sunstreaker, since they all share a mutual dislike for him. The stakes were that the loser had to carry out the prank, whatever it was. Smokescreen was too drunk to notice the other minis cheating. He ended up with the task, which they decided upon his losing, was going to be using acid to poison him. Huffer advised him of the exact type, and that he could get it from Brainstorm if he made him think it was for something else. So, Smokescreen did, and then he slipped it into Sunstreaker's cube when it was on the server drone, just before it reached his table."

The three shared a dark look. "You see Magnus? Did I not tell you this was serious?" Ratchet snarled.

The larger mech's grimace deepened, and he did not meet the medic's gaze. "Cyclonus, from where did Tailgate witness all this?"

"He was waiting for me at the bar. I did not show up because I had no interest in drinking with him. From what I understand, Whirl tried to drink with him and he became distracted before he could tell Sunstreaker that something had been slipped into his drink. He was also not sure at the time if any of it was real or if HE was being pranked. Apparently, it would not be the first time Swerve has roped more than one bot in to 'freak him out', so he says."

Rodimus stood and had an air of determination about him, moodiness replaced by purpose and conviction. "Magnus. You know what to do. Cyclonus... thanks. And tell Tailgate that next time he wants to tell us something, he just needs to come to me instead of Magnus. I promise not to crush him in my fist."

"Eeeeasy easy... good, looks like the neural links in your lower spinal struts are healing." Aid chirped cheerfully as he helped the larger golden mech to walk between two of the berths in the medbay. Bob scuttled around them chittering happily.

"Nnngh... sure doesn't FEEL like it's healing." he grunted, but there was no heat in it.

"The fact you can actually feel is good. Means the acid didn't chew all the way through the control cables. It was a close thing on the left leg." The masked medic informed him in far too cheery a manner.

"Oh, well, that makes me feel a whole lot better." he huffed, shaking his helm as he reached one of the berths and sunk down onto it, fans whirring loudly.

"I think that'll be enough physio for today. You're making excellent progress considering you couldn't get your knees to lock a day and a half ago." Aid patted his shoulder encouragingly and he managed to give the medic an almost smile. The young CMO trainee was beaming at him. At least, he thought that's what that expression was. It was hard to tell in bots with masks and visors.

Bob came shuffling up and put his front servos on the berth beside Sunstreaker, who reached out stiffly to scritch behind the bug's audials, making him purr.

"So how long d'you think before I can go back to my own quarters?"

"Mmmm, once you can walk sufficiently on your own, I'd say we could allow it. We should know by then if we missed any of the acid, and injuries that result from it should have presented and been addressed by then too."

"Ssssoooo how long before I can go?" he repeated the question with an amused lilt.

"OH, you meant timespan, of course. Considering your current progress, I'd say about four or five more days." the medic informed him as he noted down things on the front-liner's medical datapad.

Sunstreaker groaned. "THAT long, seriously?"

"Seriously. I let you go any sooner and Ratchet will have my head."

Ambulon, who was wandering by with some freshly cleaned tools, murmured something along the lines of 'you'd rather he stay longer' and then something else about head, which seemed to greatly fluster FirstAid.

Sunstreaker did a poor job of disguising a small sound of surprise at the reaction Aid had, turning his helm down as if extremely interested in the way Bob was clicking his pincers contentedly on the back of his face-guards.

After Ambulon had disappeared off, snickering, First Aid continued to busy himself with the file until Sunstreaker broke the awkward silence. "I know you said physio is over, but you overlooked something."

Aid looked up, confused and a little concerned. "Oh? I did?"

"Yeah. I still have to get back to the ISO room." he nodded to the door on the opposite side of the ward.

"Oh, that, that's no problem. I won't make you push yourself, doing TOO much will hinder your healing rather than help it." As he talked he tucked the datapad away and moved around to Sunstreaker's other side.

The front-liner made a strangled sound of surprise when the small medic scooped his arms under knees and back and lifted him bodily, carrying him over to his room as if it were nothing. Bob trundled along behind them making slightly confused noises, Sunstreaker just gaping the whole way. He was still gaping when he was carefully deposited on his berth.

"...You just-"  
"I know, I'm smaller than you. It's a gestalt thing. I have regular cables, but then I also have Defensor cables. A giant arm needs to operate on the heavy duty components you know. Just because I can't actually be an arm anymore, doesn't mean the cables for it are gone."

Sunstreaker stopped gaping and just nodded in understanding. "Guess you learn something new every day. I'll make a note of it next to the fact you seem interested but won't say anything to me directly."

Aid, who had been looking proud of himself for impressing the front-liner with his hidden strength, sputtered and lost his confidence again. "I... what? I mean... well... look, I, I know it's HIGHLY unprofessional-"  
"Did I SAY I wasn't interested back?" he gave Aid a look that clearly showed he was not adverse to the idea.

Aid's faceplate heated further. "Um... no?"

"Well then, since neither of us are DISinterested, maybe we should, oh, I don't know, talk about it more when you're off duty over a cube or two?"

The medic's embarrassment seemed to be slowly replaced by incredible giddiness. "really? I mean... yes! Sure! If you're sure?"  
"Wouldn't offer if I wasn't. Besides, Bob likes you, so you can't be all that bad." he teased.

"Primus I hope not" Aid murmured nervously with a little giggle before excusing himself to go collect his thoughts and remember what he had left to do on his shift. Which was difficult when all his processor could now focus on was the end of his shift and the possibility that his interest in Sunstreaker was not one-sided.

In the ISO room, Sunstreaker lay down heavily, Bob clambering up on the berth to flop on him, purring as the scritches resumed.

How had that been so easy? He loathed himself. Had loathed himself for years now. He'd actively AVOIDED getting involved with anyone, or letting them get involved with him. Mechs always wanted his body, sure. Hated his personality once they knew him, of course, but it had never stopped him being attractive, and he knew it.

Even so, since he'd... since the whole earth thing, no one would touch him. No one would go near him. And honestly? He didn't expect them to either.

So he should probably be more... what, surprised? No, not surprised... suspicious? No, wary? Maybe... First Aid taking interest meant he either didn't really understand what he'd done, or he didn't care. It was both nice and worrisome to think he didn't care since, well... what did that say about Aid? He was a pacifist, something Sunstreaker supposed he could overlook given he helped the cause anyway, and hell most medics were pacifists at spark (At least Autobot ones). But then he never struck him as detached enough from the war to not care that a bot... that HE had deliberately given away secrets that had helped lead to the deaths of thousands of their own faction.

So yes... he supposed he was wary of Aid's apparent... fascination with him. Maybe it was just a physical attraction? He could understand that, and slag... the way he automatically entertained it when he wasn't sure he deserved it meant he was probably DESPERATE for it.

Though there was still that mental problem of him not feeling like he deserved it. Despite the fact he'd done his time.

Oh, great, and now there was a little voice in his head that sounded very much like Rung telling him he should let his subconscious pursue this sudden outside interest. _Would it really be so bad to accept that kind of attention? There's no doubt you need it. You can't say you dislike the bot offering it. It's not as if you can't read the signs, he does want you, and he wants you THAT way obviously. What would it hurt to let things progress?_

He sighed and offlined his optics. He needed a nap so his self repairs could get to reinforcing the repairs. If he was going to entertain this whole... First Aid thing, he was going to need his independence back. He wasn't going to be much use as a frag buddy if he could barely support his own weight. That would be just embarrassing.

_Unless he were to restrain you so you couldn't move anyway, then it wouldn't matter._

Sunstreaker was both a little surprised at how inviting that thought was and how disturbingly like Rungs voice it had sounded in his head.

The psychotherapist was having an extremely odd effect on him and he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. He really hoped at the moment that it was just the pain killers.


End file.
